Swain  School  Lectures 


BY 


ANDREW  JNGRAHAM 

LATE  HEAD-MASTER  OF  THE  SWAIN  FREE^CHOOL 
NEW  BEDFORD,   MASS. 


CHICAGO 
THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

LONDON 

KEGAN  PAUL,  TRENCH,  TRUBNER  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1903 


COPYRIGHT,  1903 

BY 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
CHICAGO 


TYPOGRAPHY  BY 
AITKKN  A  CUKTIS  COMPANY,  CHICAGO 


TO 
EDWARD  TUCK 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  Psychology,  about  Minds 9 

II.  Epistemology,  about  Knowledges       .     .  33 

III.  Metaphysics,  about  Existences      •     •  57 

IV.  Logic,  about  Things  as  Related    ...  83 
V.  A  Universe  of  Hegel 103 

VI.  Seven  Processes  of  Language  ...  121 

VII.   Nine  Uses  of  Language 143 

VIII.   Many  Meanings  of  Money 169 

IX.   Some  Origins  of  the  Number  Two    .     .  185 


Psychology 


ABOUT   MINDS 


SWAIN   SCHOOL   LECTURES 

PSYCHOLOGY 

ABOUT  MINDS 

A  ton  of  coal  is  exchanged  at  one  place  for 
two  barrels  of  flour;  at  another  place  for  one. 
An  ounce  of  gold,  which  to-day  buys  thirty 
ounces  of  silver,  was  once  bartered  for  sixteen 
ounces.  All  the  antecedents  that  determine 
the  ratio  of  exchange  in  an  actual  instance  are 
never  ascertained.  In  many  actual  instances, 
however,  there  have  been  disclosed  features 
common  to  them.  But  the  aspects,  common 
or  individual,  are  operative  mainly  as  they 
determine  the  states  of  mind  of  the  two  parties 
to  a  transaction.  In  other  words,  psychical 
elements  are  involved;  and  the  business  man 
succeeds  or  fails  in  part  by  reason  of  his 
greater  or  less  knowledge  of  psychical  facts 
and  principles. 

These  facts  and  principles  are  not  those 
ultimate  facts  and  principles  which  are  dis- 
cerned by  a  few  gifted  and  devoted  students; 
for  those  profounder  truths  are  as  little  likely 
as  the  doctrines  of  the  Calculus  of  Variations 
to  become  the  possession  of  many  minds. 

9 


IO  SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

There  are  psychical  phenomena,  it  is  plain,  the 
knowledge  of  which  is  of  universal  and  imme- 
diate applicability;  and  no  one  can  go  far  in 
any  walk  of  life  without  finding  himself 
baffled  by  his  ignorance  of  some  point  of 
psychology,  though  he  may  never  have  be- 
stowed that  name  on  the  sort  of  knowledge 
he  needs. 

The  teacher  with  his  pupils;  the  orator 
before  his  audience;  the  actor  facing  his 
house;  artists,  statesmen,  philosophers, — who 
is  exempt  from  the  necessity  of  knowing 
psychical  facts,  facts  about  the  ideas,  wishes, 
purposes,  designs  of  his  fellowmen? 

Palmistry,  physiognomy,  phrenology,  astrol- 
ogy are  names  for  sets  of  signs  that  have  been 
believed  to  be  indicative  of  psychical  facts. 
Sculpture,  painting,  architecture,  music,  and 
poetry  are  certain  processes  for  modifying 
psychical  movements  in  a  determinate  way. 

A  chemist  weighs,  measures,  counts,  calcu- 
lates, and  concludes  that  one  gramme  of  that 
water  contains  one  milligramme  of  chlorine. 
He  is  not  always  aware  that  he  has  learned 
considerable  psychology  on  the  way  to  this 
conclusion.  No  matter  what  the  result,  the 
beginnings  are  sights,  smells,  tastes,  "feels"- 
in  a  word,  sensations  that  have  become  modi- 
fied by  countless  repetitions.  His  training  has 
consisted  in  discriminating  amid  a  cluster  of 


PSYCHOLOGY  I  I 

psychical  elements  something  which  he  calls 
real,  while  rejecting  the  other  elements  as 
unreal.  The  chemist  would  miss  his  own  aim 
if  he  should  try  to  be  at  the  same  time  a 
psychologist.  He  would  have  to  attend  to 
these  rejected  elements,  and  live  over  again  a 
life  which  he  must  forget  to  succeed  as  a 
chemist.  It  is  not  for  all  persons,  not  even 
for  all  teachers,  to  be  psychologists.  With 
most  people  a  little  psychology,  as  Matthew 
Arnold  said  of  mathematics,  goes  a  great  way. 
And  yet  a  little  psychology  is  likely  to  be  very 
useful;  to  the  majority  of  people  more  useful 
than  a  good  deal.  This  little,  if  it  be  of  a 
peculiar  kind,  is  a  good  thing  to  have  when 
one  is  occupying  his  mind  with  dreams,  appari- 
tions, ghosts,  materializations,  mind-cures, 
thought-transferences, — matters,  i.  e.,  about 
which  men  still  dispute,  not  where  among 
reals  they  are  to  be  placed,  but  whether  they 
are  to  be  placed  among  real  things  at  all. 

Besides  Tcllus  and  Ceres  the  Roman  peasant 
invoked  twelve  other  gods  who  were  asso- 
ciated with  as  many  processes  of  husbandry: 
Vervactor  with  the  first  plowing  of  the  fallow 
field;  Reparator  with  the  second  plowing; 
Imporcitor  with  the  third  and  final  plowing, 
by  which  the  furrows  were  drawn  and  the 
hills  heaped  up;  Insitor  with  the  sowing; 
Obarator  with  the  drawing  of  the  plow  over 


12  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

the  ground  after  the  sowing;  Occator  with  the 
working  of  the  field  over  with  the  harrow; 
Saritor  with  the  uprooting  of  weeds  with  the 
hoe;  Subruncinator  with  the  pulling  up  of 
weeds  with  the  hand;  Messor  with  reaping; 
Convector  with  the  bringing  in  of  the  grain; 
Conditor  with  stowing  it  away;  Promitor  with 
the  distribution  of  corn  from  bin  and  barn. 

This  is  but  a  fragment  of  the  evidence  that 
Usener  and  others  have  collected  to  the  effect 
that  the  primitive  Roman  never  plowed  or 
sowed  or  reaped,  never  sheared  his  sheep  or 
cut  his  own  hair,  never  did  any  good  or,  for 
that  matter,  bad  deed,  without  thinking  on  a 
god  whose  name  was  allied  to  a  word  that 
denoted  the  very  act  in  which  he  was  engaged; 
Flower,  Sower,  Harrower,  Weeder,  Shearer, 
and  even  Manurer. 

What  are  these  gods?  Where  do  they  come 
from?  If  you  and  I  believed  that  these  were 
real  beings,  the  problem  would  be  like  that  of 
accounting  for  the  origin  of  the  moon,  the 
oak-family  or  the  human  race.  But  we  do  not 
believe  that  such  beings  ever  existed  in  reality. 
How  then  did  it  come  to  pass  that  anyone 
ever  entertained  such  beliefs?  This  is  a  very 
different  problem;  not  to  account  for  the 
origin  of  the  gods,  but  for  the  origin  of  the 
belief  in  the  gods,  such  gods,  that  is,  as  these 
that  have  just  been  named.  If  we  do  not 


PSYCHOLOGY  I 3 

believe  that  these  gods  really  existed  and  were 
known  in  some  way,  what  could  have  been  the 
experiences  out  of  which  the  ideas  of  such 
beings  originated?  Let  us  try  to  imagine,  at 
least  in  vague  outlines,  a  possible  solution. 
Hunters  and  fishers,  even  nomads,  did  not 
take  kindly  to  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  when 
their  condition  urged  them  to  do  it  or  starve. 
The  feebler  were  forced  to  the  arduous  toil  by 
the  stronger;  women  and  captives  and  slaves 
were  driven  to  each  occupation  again  and 
again,  generation  after  generation,  till  at 
length  a  people  of  husbandmen  were  trained. 
But  how  hard  was  the  task  of  learning  these 
unwonted  crafts!  The  memories  of  the  tillers 
of  the  soil  were  one  long  array  of  masters, 
drivers  and  lords  who  either  compelled  them 
to  the  task,  or  instructed  them  how  to  perform 
it,  or  perhaps  even  assisted  them  to  complete 
their  labor  and  requited  their  efforts  with 
some  share  of  the  product.  Associations  of 
the  constant  presence  of  an  enforcer,  director, 
helper  or  rewarder  with  each  subdivision  of 
the  peasant's  employment  from  year  to  year 
would  result,  when  the  training  had  produced 
an  ingrained  habit,  in  the  revival,  at  the  proper 
season,  of  the  image,  the  memory,  of  the 
forms  which  had  summoned  the  thrall  to  his 
task;  and  this  remembrance  now  would 
prompt  him  to  the  fulfilment  of  his  duty,  while 


14  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

his  lips  might  implore  the  mercy  or  the  kind- 
ness of  the  being  who  appeared  to  him  in 
spirit  with  an  actuality  which  was  more  real 
to  him  than  reality  itself  is  to  many  of  our 
disillusioned  philosophers.  Blended  memories 
of  his  own  experiences,  we  may  call  these,  the 
ideas  of  past  impressions,  associations  which 
were  to  fade  away  when  man  should  become 
adapted  to  his  surroundings,  and  new  tests  of 
reality  should  be  applied.  "Still  the  old 
instinct  brings  back  the  old  names";  and 
"O  Flower,  help  me  now,"  "Do  thou,  O 
Sower,  scatter  the  seed,"  "May  the  good 
Weeder  aid  me,"  had  a  meaning  to  the 
haunted  minds  of  early  men. 

So  may  we  explain  these  occasion-gods,  as 
they  might  be  called.  You  may  accept  the 
solution  .or  reject  it;  I  am  not  concerned  now 
to  defend  or  confirm  it  by  arguments.  My 
purpose  has  been  served  if  I  have  made  plain 
that  there  once  prevailed  a  series  of  agricul- 
tural usages  implying  certain  accompanying 
beliefs;  that  we  may  imagine  them  to  have 
been  preceded  by  certain  experiences  and  that 
in  those  experiences  were  the  origins  of  those 
beliefs.  We  have  been  attacking  a  psycho- 
logical problem  and  have  essayed  its  solution 
in  accordance  with  psychological  principles. 
We  have  assumed  that  certain  actions  implied 
certain  thoughts  and  feelings;  that  these  psy- 


PSYCHOLOGY  I  5 

chical  states  grew  out  of  definite  experiences; 
that  these  experiences  were  determined  by 
the  environment;  that  it  is  possible  for  us  to 
imagine  what  that  environment  was. 

Let  us  examine  these  assumptions  and  con- 
sider how  we  are  to  classify  them,  that  is, 
determine  what  assumptions  they  most  resem- 
ble of  those  with  which  we  are  already 
familiar.  There  are  assumptions  and  assump- 
tions; and  to  ascertain  which  will  be  accepted 
and  which  will  be  rejected  is  itself  a  psychical 
problem.  Thus  does  psychology  meet  us  at 
every  turn! 

We  have  assumed  that  certain  actions  are 
attended  by  feelings  and  thoughts.  I  appear 
to  myself  to  be  permanently  debarred  from 
testing  this  assumption  directly.  I  hate  and 
love,  hope  and  fear,  believe  and  disbelieve, 
reason  and  dream, — I  do  not  know  directly 
whether  you  do  or  not.  What  I  seem  to 
myself  to  be  immediately  aware  of  (even  this 
immediacy  often  turns  out  to  be  a  mistake) 
are  sounds,  colors,  touches,  and  so  forth. 
Stones  and  plants  and  beasts  and  men  I  be- 
hold; but  minds  are  nowhere.  If  I  could  dis- 
sect a  man,  alive  or  dead,  I  should  find  no 
more  of  hopes  and  fears,  beliefs  and  disbe- 
lievings  than  I  should  in  any  dog  or  log  or 
clod.  And  here  emerges  another  problem  of 
psychology:  How  do  I  come  to  ascribe  feel- 


1 6  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

ings  and  endeavors  to  some  of  the  objects 
about  me  and  to  deny  them  of  others?  I  am 
not  asking  now  as  an  epistemologist  might 
ask  whether  a  belief  that  a  toad  has  feelings 
and  a  flint  no  feelings  is  warranted  by  the  evi- 
dence or  not;  I  am  only  asking  for  some 
account  of  the  origin  of  beliefs,  not  whether 
they  are  true  or  false.  The  pursuit  of  this 
inquiry  would  lead  you  to  the  discovery  of 
many  psychologies  very  different  from  any 
conception  of  the  doctrine  which  you  think 
prevails  or  ought  to  prevail.  You  will  find 
psychologists  who  treat  of  the  mind  of  God 
or  of  gods,  of  the  feelings  of  demons  and 
angels,  of  the  souls  of  worlds  and  stars,  of  the 
thoughts  of  mountains  and  seas,  of  the  doc- 
trine that  animals  are  automata,  of  the  ideas 
entertained  by  disembodied  spirits,  of  the 
strange  ideas  imputed  to  stranger  shapes 
which  were  thought  to  have  inhabited  the 
earth;  but  it  is  with  none  of  these  that  the 
psychology  I  mean  is  occupied.  This  confines 
its  attention  to  psychical  phenomena  that 
occur  in  connection  with  men  and  animals. 
Its  range  is  even  more  restricted;  for  it  does 
not  include  all  the  psychical  phenomena  that 
are  alleged  to  be  manifested  in  conjunction 
even  with  these,  but  only  such  as  admit  of 
being  subjected  to  certain  specifiable  tests 
which  will  leave  the  least  room  for  misinter- 


PSYCHOLOGY  1 7 

pretation.  You  will  find,  however,  that  this 
psychology  has  not  a  tenth  as  many  culti- 
vators as  the  doctrine  which  most  people  in 
our  country  understand  by  the  name  psy- 
chology, if  they  understand  anything  by  it  at 
all.  Their  psychology  busies  itself  with  pre- 
cisely those  things  which  the  other  has  ex- 
cluded on  the  ground  of  its  incompetence  to 
determine  any  mode  of  investigation;  namely,, 
with  telepathy,  thought-transference,  posses- 
sion, and  the  like. 

In  pursuing  the  inquiry  I  have  indicated, 
that  is,  in  trying  to  find  out  how  you  come  to 
ascribe  feelings  and  endeavors  to  some  of  the 
objects  about  you  and  to  deny  them  of  others, 
you  will  learn  that,  even  with  the  restriction  of 
the  scope  of  the  psychologist's  inquiry  to  the 
emotions  and  ideas  of  men  and  other  animals, 
there  has  been  much  discussion  whether  these 
thoughts  and  sentiments  were  associated  with 
the  whole  organism  of  an  individual  or  limited 
to  some  part  of  his  system.  Thus  at  different 
times  the  blood,  the  marrow  of  the  bones,  the 
heart,  the  nerves  have  figured  as  the  organ  of 
psychical  activity.  Now,  what  is  called  the 
nervous  system  has,  after  long  investigation 
and  many  confusions,  been  disentangled  from 
the  rest  of  the  organism  and  show  to  be  more 
intimately  concerned  with  mental  manifesta- 
tions than  any  other  part  of  our  frame.  This 


I 8  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

doctrine  of  the  correlation  of  nerve  tissue  and 
mental  action  is  now  taught  dogmatically  in 
our  schools,  and  the  evidences  for  or  against 
it  are  treated  with  as  much  indifference  as  is 
usually  accorded  to  the  proof  of  doctrines  that 
are  held  to  have  been  established  beyond 
doubt.  But  nerves  are  not  mind,  any  more 
than  stones  are.  It  still  appears  that  there  is 
only  one  mind  of  which  I  have  any  direct  and 
immediate  knowledge.  The  movements  of 
living  beings  around  me  I  may  ascribe  to 
muscular  changes.  These  muscular  changes 
may  be  shown  to  be  due  to  the  excitation  of 
the  nerves.  This  excitation  of  the  nerves 
may  be  produced  by  some  chemical,  mechan- 
ical, electrical,  or  other  physical  agency,  or  by 
something  else  which  I  do  not  find  in  the 
phenomena  at  all,  but  the  presence  of  which 
I  assume  there.  There  may  be  as  many 
minds  as  there  are  men,  but  each  man  has 
access  to  only  one  mind.  What  do  you  think 
would  be  the  present  knowledge  of  the  struc- 
ture of  hearts,  if  the  only  heart  that  each  one 
could  know  were  his  own,  and  it  were  a  phys- 
ical impossibility  for  him  ever  to  see  the  heart 
of  another? 

But  this  assumption  that  mind  goes  with 
nerve  structure  requires  a  few  more  words. 
It  is  not  always  assumed  to  go  with  all  nerve 
structure,  not  with  that  of  the  dead,  for 


PSYCHOLOGY  I  9 

instance,  —  not  with  all  the  nerve  substance  of 
the  living,  —  not  with  any  of  it  at  all  moments 
of  life.  Sometimes,  then,  where  there  is  nerve 
tissue,  there  is  mind,  but  is  there  mind  where 
there  is  no  nerve  tissue?  Some  have  said: 
"Without  nerve  tissue  no  mind,"  and  have 
even  gone  so  far  as  to  deny  the  existence  of 
God  on  the  ground  that  nowhere  in  the  uni- 
verse is  an  adequate  nervous  system  discover- 
able. At  all  events,  they  say,  the  scientific 
psychologist  is  limited  for  his  ultimate  data 
to  his  own  mind  and  the  nerves  of  others. 
These  conflicting  opinions  reveal  the  depths 
of  our  ignorance.  The  relation  among  these 
different  views  may  be  exhibited  very  simply 
by  means  of  diagrams  or  symbols,  n  stands 
for  what  has  nerves,  and  in  for  what  has  mind. 


m  m 


n      m  n      ni 


n      m  n     m  n      m  n      m 


n      m  n      m  n      m  n      m 


m  n      m  n      m 


m  11  m 


m 


n  =  m  n(m  n)  m  n}(m 

Our  second  assumption   in    accounting  for 
the  (supposed)  fact,  that  the  mind  of  primitive 


2O  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

man  was  haunted  by  a  swarm  ot  occasion- 
gods,  was  that  any  psychical  state  grew  out  of 
certain  experience?,  implied  certain  previous 
mental  states  without  which  it  would  not  have 
been.  If  our  psychologist  infers  that  a  man 
knows  Arabic,  he  assumes  that  the  man  has 
had  certain  experiences,  has  associated  with 
Arabs  or  has  consulted  Arabic  books;  and  he 
would  refuse  to  entertain  any  other  hypothesis 
in  regard  to  the  origin  of  this  man's  knowl- 
edge of  Arabic  until  his  assumptions  concern- 
ing the  previous  experiences  of  the  man  were 
proved  to  be  false.  This,  I  say,  is  the  assump- 
tion of  our  psychologist,  not  of  those  other 
psychologists  who,  I  asserted,  were  much  more 
numerous.  This  brings  us  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  third  assumption  which  this  least 
numerous  school  of  psychologists  feels  bound 
to  make,  that  these  experiences  were  deter- 
mined by  the  animal's  (man  or  beast)  sur- 
roundings at  some  spot  or  spots  on  the  earth's 
surface.  In  this  regard  the  position  of  the 
least  numerous  school  of  psychologists  as 
against  all  others  is:  If,  as  you  assert,  psy- 
chical states  are  otherwise  originated,  the  only 
way  to  establish  your  contention  is  to  exhaust 
all  the  possibilities  of  our  mode  of  explana- 
tion. 

Our  psychologist  then  is  limited  to  the  con- 
sideration   of   psychical    states,  their  interre- 


PSYCHOLOGY  21 

lations  and  their  relations  to  the  animal 
organism  and  its  environment,  so  far  at  least 
as  these  problems  are  essayable  by  methods 
of  research  that  have  approved  themselves  as 
having  brought  about  agreement  heretofore 
on  disputed  matters.  His  position,  you  see, 
is  an  isolated  one.  He  stands  contrasted  not 
only  with  the  hosts  of  telepathists,  Christian 
scientists,  spiritualists,  obsessionists,  posses- 
sionists,  and  the  like,  called  by  themselves  and 
others  psychologists;  but  he  is  also  at  variance 
with  another  class  of  whom  an  account  is 
given  in  the  lecture  on  metaphysics.  He  is, 
however,  closely  akin  to  him  who  has  been 
called  an  experimental,  or  a  physiological,  or 
a  laboratory,  or  a  mathematical  psychologist. 
For  the  mathematicians,  the  physicists,  the 
chemists,  the  physiologists,  and  their  kind 
have  begun  to  ask  themselves  if  they  may  not 
perhaps  help  the  psychologist  in  the  answer- 
ing of  his  questions,  though  it  must  be 
admitted  that  their  help  was  not  always 
thankfully  welcomed,  even  on  those  rare 
occasions  when  it  has  been  considerately 
proffered.  It  has  sometimes  been  fancied  by 
these  earnest  scientists  to  the  great  amaze- 
ment of  the  psychologist  that  the  sensation 
blue,  for  example,  is  going  to  be  identified 
with  some  movement  or  other  property  of  the 
atoms  of  ether  or  nerve.  It  may  be  possible  to 


22  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

enumerate  the  physical  conditions  of  the  sen- 
sation of  blue;  the  physiological  antecedents 
may  be  made  out:  the, accompanying  neural 
state  may  be  determined;  the  psychical  ele- 
ments that  preceded  it  and  made  it  feasible 
may  be  learned;  it  may  be  proved  to  be  really 
compound,  simple  though  it  appears;  its  con- 
stituents may  be  recognized;  its  ultimate  dis- 
appearance may  be  foreseen  and  the  mental 
state  to  follow  predicted;  yet  the  sensation  of 
blue  is  something  absolutely  and  inexplicably 
distinct  and  different  from  all  these.  What  1 
have  here  said  of  blue  is  true  of  any  other 
color,  any  sound,  taste,  smell,  and  so  forth, 
which  appears  to  us  simple.  No  explanation 
can  explain  my  blue  out  of  existence.  I  em- 
phasize this  point,  that  the  sensation  blue 
is  something  peculiar,  unique,  sui  generis; 
because  I  am  compelled  to  read  so  much  in 
which,  partly  from  carelessness  of  expression, 
partly  from  confusion  of  thought,  partly,  one 
must  admit,  from  the  imperfection  of  language 
and  from  unavoidable  brevity,  the  contrary  is 
implied.  When  I  read  in  Professor  Pearson 
for  instance:  "The  mind  is  absolutely  confined 
within  its  nerve  exchange;  beyond  the  walls 
of  sense  impression  it  can  logically  infer  noth- 
ing," he  seems  to  me  to  be  confounding  sensa- 
tions and  nerves  in  a  way  that  does  not  help 
me  to  understand  psychical  processes.  That 


PSYCHOLOGY  23 

a  mind  has  any  relation  to  a  brain  is  one  of 
the  latest  discoveries  that  a  mind  makes. 

You  see  this  desk,  its  distance,  shape,  size, 
color,  perhaps  the  material  of  which  it  is 
made.  You  are  aware  too  that  you  see  these 
things.  Now  whether  this  table  exists  or  not, 
or  rather  what  the  meaning  of  existence  is, 
it  is  the  claim  of  the  metaphysician  that  it 
belongs  to  him  to  decide;  and  with  his  ques- 
tions we  have  nothing  to  do.  Whether  you 
know  what  you  claim  to  know,  or  rather  what 
the  word  knowledge  should  be  taken  to  mean, 
is  a  matter  the  decision  of  which  the  episte- 
mologist  desires  should  be  reserved  to  himself; 
and  the  consideration  of  that  point  we  leave 
to  another  occasion.  But  this  conviction  of 
yours  that  you  see  the  distance,  shape,  and  so 
forth,  of  this  table  is  doubted  and  denied  by 
many  who  have  reflected  on  it.  Among  the 
first  to  call  in  question  the  belief  which  the 
philosophers  among  his  contemporaries  shared 
with  the  vulgar  was  Berkeley.  "To  Berkeley 
every  virtue  under  heaven"  is  Pope's  famous 
line;  and  those  immortal  dialogues  reveal  in 
their  simple  language  not  less  the  clear 
thought  than  the  pure  heart  of  the  benevolent 
bishop. 

The  psychologist's  question  is  not  whether 
that  conviction  of  yours  is  true,  not  whether  it 
is  (epistemo)logically  based,  but  what  are  the 


24  SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

experiences  out  of  which  it  has  grown.  It 
cannot  be  answered  by  recalling  those  expe- 
riences; no  one  remembers  them.  It  cannot 
be  answered  by  renewing  those  experiences; 
each  bit  of  experience  would  suggest  now 
implications  which  we  cannot  be  sure  that  it 
would  have  suggested  to  unfurnished  minds. 
How  then  can  we  find  out  anything  about  it? 
It  is  hard  to  give  a  generally  intelligible 
answer.  The  process  by  which  the'  philoso- 
pher attains  to  a  different  conception  from 
yours  of  the  nature  of  seeing  is  a  part  of  that 
mental  growth  which  in  you  has  reached  a 
stage  in  which  he  once  was.  His  answer  re- 
sembles that  of  the  religious  believer  to  the 
unconverted:  You  must  live  the  life,  if  you 
would  attain  the  vision.  Do  you  know  how 
the  astronomers  have  reached  their  conviction 
that  the  solar  system  was  developed  from  a 
nebulous  expanse?  Do  you  know  how  the 
geologists  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
the  earth  has  been  developing  through  long 
ages  from  a  molten  mass  to  its  present  diver- 
sified surface?  How  came  biologists  by  their 
notion  that  all  the  varied  forms  of  plants  and 
animals  have  been  slowly  evolving  through 
the  lapse  of  years  from  a  uniform  protoplasmic 
jelly?  Nay,  that  the  eye  itself  did  not  precede 
seeing,  but  that  the  eye  and  seeing  have  been 
climbing  the  ascent  of  life  together,  each 


PSYCHOLOGY  2$ 

helping  the  other,  from  the  time  when  one 
was  a  mere  pigment  cell  and  the  other  a  vague 
and  dim  sensation  of  dark  and  light?  But  all 
of  these  things  were  unknown  to  Berkeley, — 
Laplacian  speculations  about  the  origin  of  the 
solar  system,  geological  theories  of  the  earth's 
unfolding,  the  contributions  of  Darwin  and 
Haeckel  and  Huxley  to  our  knowledge  of  the 
development  of  living  structures  and  of  the 
tissues  of  the  eye, — the  whole  evolutionary 
philosophy  as  applied  to  every  aspect  of  the 
world  had  no  lodgment  in  his  mind;  and  yet 
he  discerned  the  evolution  of  the  process  of 
seeing.  I  will  not  say  that  all  his  arguments 
were  sound.  I  will  not  say  that  he  was  not 
influenced  by  considerations  that  would  have 
no  weight  with  a  modern  evolutionist.  I  will 
not  say  that  even  now  all  difficulties  have 
been  overcome  to  my  apprehension  at  least 
and  that  the  theory  is  as  clear  to  my  mind  as 
that  of  the  common  pump.  There  are  some 
things  which  it  is  not  given  to  all  of  us  to 
understand  but  I  am  sure  that  any  of  you  may 
have  as  clear  a  notion  of  this  subject  as  I 
have. 

The  contention  is  that  along  with  the  eye 
there  went  originally  no  consciousness  but 
that  of  color;  not  even  of  color  as  we  are  con- 
scious of  it,  with  its  diversities  of  tints  and 
defmiteness  of  outline;  and  that  alone  by 


26  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

itself  this  color  sensation  would  never  have 
resulted  in  what  we  now  behold  whenever  we 
lift  our  eyelids.  Berkeley's  insistence  was 
that  this  color  experience  was  accompanied  by 
another  experience  totally  unlike  it,  and  that 
the  color-series  had  become  so  indissolubly 
associated  with  that  other  series  as  to  suggest 
that  other  immediately;  somewhat  as  words, 
which  are  totally  unlike  the  ideas  they  stand 
for,  yet  call  up  those  ideas  in  spite  of  our- 
selves. The  puzzle  of  our  being  able  to  see 
things  at  a  distance  had  not  escaped  the 
notice  of  curious  men;  nor  had  there  been 
wanting,  long  before  Berkeley,  attempts  at  its 
solution;  but,  as  often  happens  with  first 
attempts,  the  solution  missed  the  very  thing 
to  be  explained.  Some  said  that  the  mind 
went  out  through  the  eye  to  the  object;  others 
that  emanations  from  the  object  came  to  the 
eye;  while  others  dismissed  the  problem  as 
insoluble,  and  others  again  declared  that  there 
was  no  problem  to  solve,  that  it  was  "just 
e'en  so  from  the  beginning  and  that's  an  end 
on  't."  Berkeley  thought  he  had  discovered 
that  other  experience  which  clung  so  tightly 
to  color,  in  the  combinations  and  organiza- 
tions of  sensations  of  touch.  These  touch- 
sensations  had  themselves  become  greatly 
modified  from  what  they  originally  were  by 
being  frequently  repeated,  felt  in  all  sorts  of 


PSYCHOLOGY  2 7 

successions  and  combinations,  coalescing  with 
one  another  and  forming  wholes  whose  parts 
were  no  longer  distinguishable.  The  color- 
feelings  blended  with  the  touch-feelings  till 
it  became  impossible  for  us  to  touch  a  surface 
without  thinking  of  it  as  colored,  or  to  have 
the  color-sensation  without  thinking  of  the 
tangible  surface.  In  short,  Berkeley  thought 
of  the  almost  instantaneous  glance  by  which 
one  takes  in  a  whole,  landscape,  as  a  com- 
plex of  a  series  of  manifold  inferences,  all 
melted  and  merged  into  one.  Others  have 
discerned  other  elements  in  the  process 
since,  and  the  intricacy  of  the  whole  de- 
mands a  volume  for  its  exposition;  as  indeed 
on  the  physiological  side  the  account  of 
the  structure  and  tissues  of  the  eye  demands 
no  less.  Listen  to  what  he  himself  says:  "In 
treating  of  these  things,  the  use  of  language 
is  apt  to  occasion  some  confusion  and  obscu- 
rity, and  create  in  us  wrong  ideas.  For  lan- 
guage, being  accommodated  to  the  common 
notions  and  prejudices  of  men,  it  is  scarce  pos- 
sible to  deliver  the  naked  and  precise  truth 
without  great  circumlocution,  impropriety, 
and  (to  an  unwary  reader)  seeming  contradic- 
tion. I  do  therefore  once  for  all  entreat 
whosoever  shall  think  it  worth  his  while  to 
understand  what  I  have  written  concerning 
vision,  that  he  should  not  stick  in  this  or  that 


28  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

phrase  or  manner  of  expression,  but  cordially 
collect  my  meaning  from  the  whole  sum  and 
tenor  of  my  discourse,  and  laying  aside  the 
words  as  much  as  possible,  consider  the  bare 
notions  themselves,  and  then  judge  whether 
they  are  agreeable  to  truth  and  his  experience 
or  no." 

We  have  forgotten  the  ardent  zeal  of  the 
good  bishop  in  commending  the  virtues  of  tar- 
water  for  the  cure  of  all  the  ills  of  flesh.  His 
scheme  for  civilizing  the  wilderness  by  estab- 
lishing a  college  at  Bermuda  seems  strange  to 
us  now.  We  smile  as  we  read:  "Tell  me,  are 
we  not- obliged,  if  we  believe  the  Mosaic  ac- 
count of  things,  to  hold  the  world  was  created 
not  quite  six  thousand  years  ago?"  Few  will 
trouble  themselves  nowadays  to  determine 
whether  his  New  Theory  of  Vision  war- 
ranted all  the  conclusion  that  it  seemed  to  the 
author  to  imply — that  a  material  universe  does 
not  exist,  and  that  a  personal  God  does  exist. 
But  in  our  knowledge  of  psychical  phenomena 
a  great  advance  had  been  made,  analogous  to 
that  which  has  recently  taken  place  in  our 
knowledge  of  the  structure  of  the  brain.  This, 
it  is  asserted,  is  the  result  of  the  coalescence 
of  some  nine  vertebral  segments,  thus  disprov- 
ing Goethe's  theory  of  the  skull,  and  showing, 
in  his  case,  as  indeed  in  that  of  Berkeley,  that 
praise  was  due  to  him  for  the  spirit  and  nature 


PSYCHOLOGY  2Q 

of  his  discovery  rather  than  for  its  exemption 
from  an  admixture  of  error. 

"We  are  the  stuff  that  dreams  are  made  of, 
and  our  little  life  is  rounded  with  a  sleep," 
represents  this  universe  of  men  and  things  as 
the  dream-images  of  a  sleeper,  with  all  the 
implications  of  unreality,  unsubstantiality,  in- 
coherence, and  uncertainty  that  we  associate 
with  dreams.  The  utterance  has  an  emo- 
tional, a  religious,  a  moral,  perhaps  an  im- 
moral, effectiveness;  but  the  psychologist 
seeks  to  assign  dreams  their  place  and  to  keep 
them  from  troubling  the  waking  thought  of 
himself  and  his  friends.  If  he  ventured  to 
encroach  on  the  jealously-guarded  domains  of 
his  fraternal  enemy,  the  metaphysician,  and  to 
hazard  any  statement  about  the  sum  of  things, 
he  might  declare:  "Sensations  are  the  stuff 
that  thou  and  all  that  is  are  made  of,  and  thy 
little  life  upbeareth  thy  great  world." 


Epistemology 


ABOUT  KNOWLEDGES 


EPISTEMOLOGY 

ABOUT    KNOWLEDGES 

There  are  not  only  lichens  and  planets, 
steamships  and  novels,  Egyptian  antiquities 
and  bacteria,  but  knowledges.  I  show  how 
knowledges  differ  from  non-knowledges.  I 
exhibit  their  resemblances  and  differences, 
their  groupings  into  sciences,  their  enchain- 
ments one  to  another.  I  exclude,  too,  many 
things  that  my  fellows  call  knowledges,  simply 
because  I  do  not  find  in  those  things  the  char- 
acters I  mean  by  the  term.  Knowledges  are 
psychical  states.  All  the  sciences  are  psy- 
chical states.  Science  itself,  i.  e.,  all  the  sciences 
or  their  common  element,  is  a  psychical  state. 
Botany  is  a  psychical  state;  but  we  call  a  book 
a  Botany,  and  we  speak  of  botanical  phenom- 
ena, meaning  plants  and  their  qualities  and 
relation.  If  all  mankind  should  perish,  the 
book  might  remain,  the  plants  might  remain, 
let  us  suppose;  but  there  would  be  no  science, 
no  botany.  Would  there  then  be  no  botany  if 
all  mankind  should  sink  into  profound  sleep? 
Surely  there  would  be  no  psychical  states,  and 
consequently  no  knowledge,  and  hence  no  sci- 
ence. A  man  loses  consciousness  in  a  swoon 

33 


34  SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

and  recovers  it  again.  So  knowledge  comes 
and  goes;  and  if  we  say  a  botanist  knows 
more  than  he  is  conscious  of  at  any  instant,  we 
merely  express  the  possibility  of  this  recur- 
rence. It  is  with  respect  to  the  possibility  of 
these  revivals  that  he  differs  from  the  layman 
who  never  knew  and  never  will  know  botany. 
Knowledges  then  are  psychical  states  and 
they  are  readily  discriminated  by  most  from 
the  states  which  we  name  pleasures  and  pains, 
hopes  and  fears,  loves  and  hates,  desires,  en- 
deavors; and  as  they  have  been  already  col- 
lected under  a  general  term,  we  need  not 
enumerate  all  the  particulars,  but  call  them  at 
once  wills  and  emotions.  An  emotion  of  one 
man  may  be  like  an  emotion  of  another;  you 
might  say,  though  you  would  not  mean,  that 
the  two  were  experiencing  the  same  emotion. 
Now  how  minds  became  alike  or  rather  how 
there  came  to  be  a  set  of  objects  which  resem- 
bled one  another  to  such  a  degree  that  one 
name  should  be  applicable  to  any  one  of  them 
is  one  of  that  host  of  questions  the  answer  to 
which  was  sought  by  Darwin  and  given  in 
terms  which  differed  widely  from  those  which 
conveyed  the  answers  of  others.  Whatever 
origins  the  resemblances  among  animals  may 
have  had,  such  resemblances  are  one  of  the 
conditions  of  knowledge.  The  primary  crite- 
rion by  which  one  ascertains  that  a  conscious- 


EPISTEMOLOGY  35 

ness  of  his  is  a  knowledge,  is  the  discovery 
that  other  minds  resemble  his  in  that  partic- 
ular. Knowledge,  that  is  to  say,  is  a  social 
product;  without  society,  no  knowledge. 
Without  this  comparison  of  mind  and  mind, 
without  the  conditions  that  made  this  compar- 
ison possible,  there  would  be  nothing  which  I 
should  call  knowledge.  It  is  not  merely  this 
agreement  in  a  number  of  minds  that  makes 
of  a  consciousness  a  knowledge,  but  it  must  be 
accompanied  with  the  additional  consciousness 
that  this  agreement  exists.  This,  however,  is 
only  a  negative  criterion.  Nothing  is  knowl- 
edge which  does  not  stand  this  test;  but  much 
that  stands  this  test  is  not  knowledge.  It  is 
not  enough  that  I  agree  with  others  and  that 
I  am  aware  of  that  agreement,  there  must  be 
an  absence  of  conflicting  states  of  conscious- 
ness. With  animals,  with  most  men,  and  with 
every  man  on  some  occasions  and  on  some 
subjects,  this  second  test  is  the  only  one  that 
is,  I  can  hardly  say  applied,  but  involved;  and 
that  too  with  no  thought  of  the  necessity  of 
the  first  test  and  still  less  of  any  other.  From 
this  primitive,  uncritical  state  many  never  are 
aroused;  they  never  awake  from  this  dogmatic 
slumber.  It  is  better  perhaps  not  to  see  a  test 
of  the  knowledge-quality  of  a  consciousness  in 
this  individual  conviction,  nor  yet  in  the  inten- 
sity of  the  conviction.  It  is  surely  not  applied 


36  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

by  primitive  men,  but  it  is  applied  by  philoso- 
phers to  vindicate  as  knowledges  certain  ine- 
radicable beliefs  of  their  own  which  either 
cannot  be  established  by  any  other  tests  pr 
have  failed  to  stand  them.  Observe  that  it  is 
only  under  the  point  of  view  of  your  personal 
conviction,  regarded  as  a  test  of  your  knowl- 
edge, that  I  have  permitted  myself  to  bring 
together  such  unlike  things  as  a  belief  that 
has  never  been  doubted  and  a  belief  which 
has  triumphed  over  all  doubts  and  annihilated 
them. 

Knowledges  are  intellectual  states;  let  us 
say  in  one  word,  intellections;  but  all  intellec- 
tions are  not  knowledges.  By  what  third 
criterion  can  a  knowledge-intellection  be  dis- 
tinguished from  any  other?  By  their  relative 
clearness  and  distinctness,  has  been  replied. 
Clearness  refers  to  the  relation  of  the  intellec- 
tion to  other  consciousnesses  of  the  individual; 
distinctness  to  its  internal  structure.  This  is 
one  criterion,  but  it  is  not  a  sufficient  crite- 
rion; though  it  has  been  considered  such  not 
only  by  the  generality  of  mankind,  but  by 
many  eminent  philosophers.  Among  the 
latter  was  Descartes,  who  said:  "I  believed 
myself  to  be  able  to  assume  as  a  general  rule 
that  everything  that  I  conceived  clearly  and 
distinctly  was  true."  An  intellect  like  that  of 
Descartes  wins  a  great  many  bits  of  knowl- 


EPISTEMOLOGY  37 

edge  from  the  void  and  formless  infinite  by 
the  rigid  adherence  to  this  principle,  because 
it  discerns  obscurities  and  difficulties  and  has 
the  force  to  remove  them;  but  the  insufficiency 
of  the  principle,  even  in  the  control  of  a 
Descartes,  for  discriminating  knowledges  from 
what  may  be  mistaken  for  them,  is  evident 
enough  when  we  consider  how  many  of  his 
knowledges  have  failed  to  stand  the  severer 
tests  which  modern  thought  demands. 

Observe,  however,  that  in  determining  what 
intellection  is  a  knowledge,  and  what  intellec- 
tion is  not  a  knowledge,  all  the  tests  I  have 
enumerated  and  all  that  I  shall  enumerate  are 
necessary.  It  may  be  that  the  combined  man- 
ifestation of  them  all  is  necessary.  It  may  be 
that  even  then  the  discrimination  is  not  as 
perfect  as  it  will  become  hereafter.  Some 
failure  will  admonish  us  of  that,  but  repeated 
failures  have  already  abundantly  admonished 
us  that  no  one  criterion  ever  proposed  has 
been  sufficient. 

Your  personal  conviction,  your  agreement 
with  others,  no  matter  how  many,  your  con- 
sciousness of  such  agreement,  the  clearness 
and  distinctness  of  your  idea, — if  all  these  do 
not  warrant  you  in  declaring  your  conviction  a 
knowledge,  where,  pray,  does  knowledge 
emerge?  Well,  we  might  say  that  it  has 
emerged  already,  and  not  object  in  every-day 


38  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

talk  to  apply  the  name  of  knowledge  to  con- 
ceptions that  exhibited  all,  or  even  some  of  the 
characteristics  only,  that  I  have  already  enu- 
merated; but  what  I  am  trying  to  do  is  to 
make  plain  that  the  word  knowledge,  in  de- 
fault of  a  better  word  and  to  avoid  a  strange 
term,  such  as  cognition,  is  coming  to  be  used 
in  a  very  precise  and  definite  signification 
which  requires  as  a  fourth  test  that  the  intel- 
lection to  which  it  is  applied  should  have  been 
analyzed,  as  far  as  possible,  into  the  elements 
and  relations  of  which  it  is  composed  by  the 
process  of  comparing  and  contrasting  it  with 
other  intellections,  and  determining  wherein  it 
is  like  and  wherein  it  is  unlike  those  others. 
I  might  linger  on  this  process  and  develop  in 
your  minds,  by  an  array  of  examples,  the 
intuition  of  its  nature  as  I  conceive  it.  This 
process  discloses  the  likeness  of  different  con- 
ceptions and  the  differences  of  like  concep- 
tions. It  bears  us  away  from  those  associations 
which  custom  and  language  and  tradition  have 
woven  around  us.  It  reveals  to  us  new  worlds 
amid  the  old,  and  remoulds  for  us  our  inner 
life  and  the  aspect  of  nature.  It  generates 
those  classes  with  which  logic  has  to  deal;  and 
it  lights  the  way  for  us  to  behold  the  remain- 
ing features  that  an  intellection  must  possess 
to  be  called,  by  us  at  least,  a  knowledge,  a 
cognition. 


EPISTEMOLOGY  39 

Now  this  analysis  discloses  in  any  intellec- 
tion a  set  of  elements  and  relations  among 
elements.  Between  any  two  of  these  elements 
are  exhibited  numerous  relations.  Here 
comes  the  fifth  examination  to  which  those 
consciousnesses,  those  ideas,  those  intellec- 
tions, those  beliefs,  those  faiths,  those  sur- 
mises, those  suspicions,  those  theories,  those 
hypotheses,  in  brief,  all  those  psychical  states 
must  be  submitted  that  are  discontented  with 
their  station  and  aspire  to  rise,  if  it  may  not 
be  to  sink,  to  the  rank  of  knowledges.  Let 
us  then  fix  our  attention  on  one  of  the  couples 
that  our  analysis  has  disclosed.  Let  the  ele- 
ments be  denoted  by  a  and  b,  and  the  relation 
between  them  by  r.  Our  question  now-  is: 
This  intellection  of  the  relation  between  a  and 
1), — is  it  a  knowledge?  If  it  is  not,  then  the 
whole  of  which  it  forms  a  part  is  not  a  knowl- 
edge; and,  for  this  elementary  intellection  to 
be  allowed  to  rank  as  a  knowledge,  we  must 
in  addition  to  the  tests  to  which  we  have 
already  subjected  it,  find  that  it  survives  the 
following  tests: 

Suppose  that  in  one  set  of  circumstances,  in 
one  group  of  consciousnesses,  a  and  b  occur 
in  the  relation  r,  and  that  when  the  circum- 
stances change,  a  and  b  still  occur  in  the  same 
relation  to  each  other;  and  that  this  relation 
persists,  when  the  accompanying  group  has 


40  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

undergone  another  change;  and  so  on,  until 
the  environment  has  changed  as  frequently 
and  as  completely  as  possible;  then,  as  far  as 
this  test  is  concerned,  this  intuition  of  the 
relation  between  a  and  b  is  entitled  to  rank  as 
a  knowledge,  but  only  so  far  as  this  one  crite- 
rion is  involved.  Before  it  can  be  made  free 
of  the  realm,  it  must  undergo  still  further 
tests.  (Method  of  Agreement.) 

Let  there  be  two  sets  of  circumstances  as 
closely  alike  as  we  can  find  or  make  them, 
and  suppose  that  into  one  of  these  we  intro- 
duce a  but  not  into  the  other,  and  b  emerges 
in  the  relation  r  to  a  amid  the  conditions  into 
which  we  had  introduced  a,  but  not  into  the 
other,  then  we  have  one  more  reason  for  call- 
ing this  intellection  a  knowledge.  (Method 
of  Differences.) 

Suppose,  in  the  third  place,  that  while  every- 
thing else  remains  the  same,  the  variations  in 
a  are  accompanied  by  variations  in  b,  that,  as 
the  phrase  goes,  they  vary  "concomitantly," 
then  we  have  this  additional  ground  for  call- 
ing this  relation  between  a  and  b  a  knowledge. 
(Method  of  Concomitant  Variation.) 

Anyone  who  has  ever  done  any  cooking 
and  attempted  to  follow  a  recipe,  will  under- 
stand that  a  great  many  precautions  must  be 
taken  in  the  employment  of  these  tests,  famil- 
iarity with  which  can  only  be  acquired  by 


EPISTEMOLOGY  4 1 

repeated  trials.  It  is  plain,  too,  from  what  we 
said  at  the  outset  about  knowledge  being  a 
social  product  that  these  experiences  must 
not  only  be  repeated  by  one's  self,  but  that 
others  must  go  through  like  experiences  and 
attain  like  results,  before  what  we  call  knowl- 
edge can  make  its  appearance. 

It  seems  cruel  to  refuse  the  title  of  knowl- 
edge to  a  psychical  state  that  has  survived  all 
these  tests.  The  great  majority  of  men  em- 
ploy, and  insist  on  employing,  the  term  in  a 
much  less  precise  signification.  But  there  are 
some  who  are  not  content  even  yet;  they  will 
not  call  this  isolated  intellection  knowledge 
even  when  it  has  satisfied  all  these  require- 
ments. They  contend  that  there  must  be 
many  similarly  established  intellections  whose 
relations  to  each  other  have  been  tested  by 
the  processes  by  which  each  single  intellection 
has  been  tested,  till  the  whole  forms  a  system 
of  interrelated  elements,  a  science. 

All  this  merely  means  that  epistemologists, 
or  the  cultivators  of  the  knowledge  of  knowl- 
edges, like  the  cultivators  of  other  sciences, 
have  not  yet  come  to  an  agreement  among 
themselves  as  to  the  definition  of  knowledge, 
nor  do  they  all  classify  knowledges  in  the 
same  way.  I  permit  myself  to  think  that 
there  is  no  one  classification,  but  that  there 
are  and  always  will  be  a  number  of  classifica- 


42  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

tions  one  of  which  will  best  serve  one  purpose 
and  another  another;  but  that  no  classification 
is  possible  which  will  answer  all  purposes  for 
which  man  wants  knowledge.  Even  knowl- 
edge itself  is  by  no  means  an  universal  want. 
There  are  great  peoples  that  have  no  such 
knowledges  as  we  have  been  trying  to  charac- 
terize. It  does  not  seem  likely  to  be  attain- 
able by  the  bulk  of  any  civilized  communities. 
The  very  idea  of  taking  such  pains  is  distaste- 
ful to  many  cultivated  persons.  The  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  anyone  wishing  to 
become  an  epistemologist  are  so  numerous 
that  few  would  attempt  it  if  it  were  not  for  the 
fact  that  many  a  man  believes  himself  to  be 
an  epistemologist  already.  The  presumption 
of  those  who  pretend  to  know  something 
about  knowledges  has  this  merit,  that  it  stimu- 
lates the  desire  of  others  to  know.  But  just 
see  what  are  some  of  the  unavoidable  diffi- 
culties, difficulties  I  mean  which  will  always 
exist,  even  when  every  man  shall  become  as 
passionately  eager  for  knowledge  as  Kant 
himself,  difficulties  which  not  even  a  Kant  can 
surmount. 

You  wish  to  become  a  mineralogist.  You 
collect  minerals;  you  examine  and  compare 
them.  You  weigh  them;  you  measure  their 
angles;  you  expose  them  in  a  variety  of  ways 
to  heat  and  light;  you  break  and  grind  them 


EPISTEMOLOGY  43 

and  mix  them  with  chemicals;  you  visit  various 
localities  and  ascertain  the  sources  of  the 
minerals;  you  compare  your  views  with  those 
of  others.  But  why  make  a  long  story  of  it? 
After  half  a  life-time  spent  in  this  way,  you 
are  merely  a  mineralogist.  But  you  wish  to 
become  an  epistemologist.  Then  it  merely 
remains  for  you  to  occupy  the  rest  of  your  life 
in  acquiring,  in  a  similar  manner  chemistry, 
botany,  zoology,  psychology.  But  is  not  the 
idea  absurd  that  anyone  should  ever  think  of 
becoming  an  epistemologist?  Why,  you  might 
say,  what  you  call  an  epistemologist  is  what  we 
others  call  a  philosopher,  one  who  takes  all 
knowledge  for  his  province.  But  the  philoso- 
phers are  all  dead;  I  doubt  if  any  philosopher, 
in  your  sense  of  the  word,  will  ever  walk  the 
earth  again.  He  has  fissiparously  left  a  brood 
that  care  little  for  their  ancestor  or  for  one 
another.  The  ''natural  philosophers"  fell  off 
long  ago,  and  those  who  were  left  behind 
regarded  the  dissidents  with  scorn,  and  ridi- 
culed the  English  for  calling  mere  scientists 
philosophers.  Then  the  psychologists  broke 
away,  and  found  too  much  to  occupy  them- 
selves with  in  their  own  restricted  province. 
Moralists,  sociologists,  ethnologists  are  also  a 
part  of  the  progeny;  and  there  are  left  still 
hardly  more  than  the  epistemologist  and  the 
metaphysician  to  dispute  about  the  division 


44  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

of  what  remains  of  the  old  estate;  and  a  hard 
time  enough  they  have  of  it  in  ascertaining 
what  belongs  to  each  alone  and  what  they 
must  continue  to  hold  in  common.  The  pres- 
ent arrangement  appears  to  be  that  the  episte- 
mologist  limits  himself  to  knowledges  and  the 
metaphysician  is  restricted  to  realities. 

Knowledges  have  been  divided  into  mediate 
and  immediate.  It  is  by  no  means  settled 
where  the  line  between  the  two  is  drawn. 
The  beginnings  of  consciousness  are  not  the 
beginnings  of  knowledge.  The  analysis  of 
neither  leads  us  to  any  elements  which  we 
can  regard  as  more  than  provisionally  ulti- 
mate. And  surely  the  elements  which  we 
regard  for  the  time  being  as  ultimate  in  the 
one  are  not  those  which  we  regard  as  ultimate 
in  the  other.  All  knowledges  are  psychical 
states,  but  there  are  many  psychical  states 
which  are  not  knowledge  and  which  in  part 
precede  knowledge.  In  this  aspect  all  knowl- 
edges are  mediate,  and  the  laws  of  knowledge 
derivative  laws, — particular  cases  of  more 
general  psychical  laws.  The  ultimate  ele- 
ments of  knowledge  are  certain  persistences 
and  recurrences  amid  the  throng  of  psychical 
states.  The  belief  that  the  earth  is  ninety  odd 
million  miles  from  the  sun  is  entertained  by 
thousands  of  people.  Their  conviction  is 
ineradicable.  How  it  has  become  so  is  a 


EPISTEMOLOGY  45 

psychological  story  that  might  differ  from  per- 
son to  person.  To  a  few  only  is  it  knowledge; 
a  few  only  have  subjected  this  belief  to  those 
tests  which  the  belief  must  survive  to  be  called 
knowledge  in  anyone's  mind.  Even  here 
there  would  be  great  differences.  One  would 
discern  that  his  belief  of  the  sun's  distance 
depended  on  his  knowing  that  the  sum  of  the 
angles  of  a  triangle  is  equal  to  two  right 
angles;  while  another  would  encounter  no 
mathematical  or  physical  belief,  but  would 
resolve  his  knowledge  (for  we  have  assumed 
it  to  be  knowledge  in  his  case)  into  certain 
beliefs  in  regard  to  the  credibility  of  human 
testimony.  The  belief  that  the  angle-sum  in 
a  triangle  is  two  right  angles  is  inferred  in 
different  minds  from  different  data. 

The  distinction  then  between  mediate  and 
immediate  knowledge  is  that  between  any 
knowledge-group  and  the  elements  from  which 
it  is  compounded.  From  the  latter  the  former 
are  said  to  be  inferred;  but  the  elements  were 
not  reached  without  inferences.  What  is  this 
inference-relation? 

In  the  past  the  logician  occupied  himself 
with  a  number  of  heterogeneous  subjects.  He 
mingled  with  the  study  of  classes  and  their 
relations  the  study  of  inference-relations;  and 
this  in  part  because  the  latter  were  supposed 
to  depend  on  the  former.  As  I  conceive  it, 


46  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

the  doctrine  of  inferences  belongs  to  the  epi- 
stemologist;  at  any  rate,  the  logician  has  mate- 
rial enough  in  class-relations  to  keep  him  busy 
for  some  years  yet.  An  inference,  as  the 
anticipation  of  a  storm  from  the  aspect  of  the 
heavens  or  the  surmise  that  a  man  has  walked 
along  the  shore  from  marks  on  the  sand,  re- 
quires a  memory  of  an  association  of  two 
things,  a  and  b,  the  presence  of  something 
like  a,  followed  by  the  consciousness  of  some- 
thing like  b.  This  is  the  general  scheme,  but 
there  are  three  modifications  which  indeed 
merge  into  each  other,  but  in  the  developed 
consciousness  are  sufficiently  distinct  to  have 
received  different  names:  transduction,  induc- 
tion, and  deduction.  The  results  of  these 
processes  do  not,  any  more  than  the  results  of 
other  psychical  processes,  become  knowledges 
until  they  have  withstood  the  tests  already 
enumerated.  These  three  words  imply  mean- 
ings which  I  do  not  intend  to  convey.  They 
are  simply  the  least  unsatisfactory  terms  I  can 
find.  When  from  the  experience  of  a  and  b 
together  we  suspect  that  every  a  is  accom- 
panied by  b,  we  have  an  induction,  but  some 
apply  the  term  to  thoroughly  tested  conclu- 
sions of  this  kind  and  others  use  it  of  any 
general  relation  however  obtained.  If  we, 
upon  the  actual  occurrence  of  an  a,  divine  the 
presence  of  b  because  we  believe  that  a  b  goes 


EPISTEMOLOGY  47 

v/ith  every  a,  we  have  a  deduction.  When, 
however,  the  presence  of  a  suggests  b  simply 
on  the  ground  of  some  remembrance  of  the 
conjunction  of  the  two  without  any  warrant 
that  a  and  b  are  often  found  together,  we  have 
a  transduction. 

The  comparison  and  the  contrasting  of 
knowledges  or  rather  of  candidates  for  the 
title  of  knowledges,  the  resolving  of  them  into 
their  elements  and  the  putting  of  these  ele- 
ments together  again,  the  making  of  induc- 
tions, transductions,  inductions,  the  repeated 
testing  of  these  by  the  methods  of  agreement, 
difference,  concomitant  variation,  and  a  multi- 
tude of  others,  are  processes  which  are  being 
executed  by  merchants,  lawyers,  manufac- 
turers, scientists,  logicians,  physicians,  farm- 
ers, laborers  with  more  or  less  exactitude 
and  success;  but  all  that  these  care  for 
is  the  result  of  the  processes;  the  episte- 
mologist  is  interested  in  the  processes  them- 
selves, not  merely  as  psychical  states,  but 
as  generating  knowledges.  He  rejoices  in 
the  discovery  of  any  new  criterion  by  which 
the  separation  of  knowledges  from  foreign 
admixtures  may  be  effected.  As  episte- 
mologist  (as  epistemologist,  observe,  he  may 
be  at  the  same  time  an  epicure  and  a 
humanitarian)  the  utility,  the  beauty,  the 
nobility,  the  sanctity  of  a  long-accredited  mass 


48  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

of  supposed  knowledge,  he  disregards  com- 
pletely, when  considering  the  question  of 
admitting  it  to  his  museum  of  knowledges.  It 
may  be  that  the  belief  will  always  retain  those 
attributes  after  its  knowledge-quality  has  been 
taken  away  from  it;  he  does  not  care.  It 
may  be  that  these  ascriptions  of  praise  will 
one  after  the  other  dwindle  away  from  the 
belief,  now  that  its  knowledge-element  has 
vanished;  still  he  does  not  care.  Anguish  of 
hearts,  domestic  disharmonies,  civil  strife, 
world-wide  confusion  may  be  known,  even  by 
his  refined  tests  of  knowledge,  to  be  the  con- 
sequences of  the  new  discrimination;  he 
heeds  it  not  at  all.  Indeed,  there  is  no  such 
ruthless  tame  animal  living  as  is  your  episte- 
mologist  ...  in  his  study. 

But  however  extensive  his  collection  of 
knowledges  may  be,  or  may  become,  there 
are  two  knowledges  which  each  epistemologist 
wishes  to  add  to  his  collection.  One  of  these 
concerns  the  classification  of  knowledges 
among  realities  and  their  relation  to  other 
realities,  if  any  meaning  can  be  attached  to 
that  word.  For  some  contribution  to  this 
department,  he  has  long  awaited  the  report  of 
the  metaphysician,  and  incidentally  made 
incursions  into  the  realms  of  the  latter  on  his 
own  account.  The  other  concerns  the  ultimate 
analysis  of  knowledge,  its  elements,  its  prin- 


EPISTEMOLOGY  49 

ciples,  its  constituents  .  .  .  we  must  multiply 
terms  here,  for  we  do  not  know  this  as  yet, 
and  therefore  do  not  know  exactly  what  we 
want  to  know.  It  requires  much  experience 
of  answers  to  frame  a  question  rightly.  The  old 
analysists  asked  their  questions  boldly,  and 
expected  to  find  some  such  answer  as  7  or  8; 
but  they  got  fractions,  negatives,  zeros, 
infinities,  imaginary  and  complex  quantities, 
with  which  they  did  not  know  what  to  do. 
These  are  seen  now  to  contain  answers  to 
questions  which  lurked  unnoticed  in  the 
original  question.  Similarly,  the  epistemol- 
ogist's  question,  simple  as  it  may  seem, 
involves,  I  take  it,  a  number  of  different  ques- 
tions. He  who  asks,  as  Kant  did,  "How  is 
knowledge  possible?"  should  have  explained 
more  fully  than  Kant  did  just  what  he  meant 
by  such  ambiguous  terms  as  how  and  possible 
and  knowledge. 

This  ultimate  question  of  the  "knowledgist" 
has  shared  the  fate  of  many  philosophical 
questions;  to  be  answered,  proved  unanswer- 
able, considered  as  futile,  scorned  as  meaning- 
less. Again,  when  the  question  was  first 
asked,  the  universe  was  for  men  full  of  dis- 
tinctions,— God  and  Devil,  Heaven  and  Hell, 
reason  and  sense,  body  and  soul,  organic  and 
mineral,  species  and  species,  faculty  and 
faculty;  and  moreover  these  distinctions  were 


5O  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

not  only  thought  to  be  indefeasible,  but  to  be 
indissolubly  bound  up  with  human  happiness 
and  virtue.  Whatever  may  have  been  held 
by  divines  and  philosophers,  I  cannot  see  that 
any  question  in  which  they  are  interested  is 
affected  in  its  decision  by  the  ultimate  analysis 
of  knowledge  that  may  be  adopted  more  than 
it  is  by  the  ultimate  analysis  of  air.  Really,  it 
is  time  to  discern  that  the  freedom  of  the  will, 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the  existence  of 
God  are  as  independent  as  the  diameter  of 
the  earth  of  the  analysis  of  knowledge  into 
its  elements.  There  are  many  good  things 
besides  knowledges  within  our  reach. 

The  question  is,  what  are  the  ultimate  con- 
stituents of  knowledges,  of  knowledge? 
Knowledges  are  a  peculiar  kind  of  psychical 
states.  We  have  seen  how  they  are  dis- 
tinguished from  other  psychical  states.  What 
elements  have  they  taken  up  into  themselves? 
Sensations;  that  is  admitted  on  all  hands. 
Anything  else?  Is  space  a  sensation?  Is  time 
a  sensation?  Are  species,  genera,  and  classes 
sensations?  Are  the  ideas  of  freedom,  of 
immortality,  sensations  ?  This  is  denied  on 
all  hands.  Wrhat  are  they  then?  Compounds 
of  successive  sensations,  say  many;  and  they 
endeavor  to  establish  their  assertion  by  essay- 
ing the  analysis  of  these  ideas  into  sensations 
with  some  measure  of  success,  as  they  think. 


EPISTEMOLOGY  5 1 

The  answer  of  pre-Kantian  philosophers  was 
that  these  objects  are  realities  about  which  the 
mind  is  in  some  way  conversant.  Kant's 
answer  was  a  reversal  of  this;  and  he  con- 
ceived that  his  theory  was  related  to  the  pre- 
vious theories  as  the  Copernican  theory  of 
the  universe  to  the  Ptolemaic,  as  the  helio- 
centric to  the  geocentric  hypothesis.  Kant 
said,  These  are  ultimate  constituents  of  mind, 
without  which  there  would  be  no  experience, 
which  make  experience  possible,  which  are 
not  products  of  experience,  but  which  shape 
and  mould  experience,  and  determine  our  per- 
ceptions, our  reasonings,  and  our  conduct. 
They  are  subdivided — these  determinative 
constituents  of  mind  are — into  the  forms  of 
sense,  that  is,  space  and  time,  whence  percep- 
tions and  the  order  of  the  universe,  and  such 
sciences  as  geometry  and  mechanics;  the 
categories  of  the  understanding,  that  is, 
quantity,  quality  and  relation,  whence  species 
and  genera,  and  the  foundations  of  the 
science  of  logic;  the  ideas  of  reason,  that  is, 
God,  Immortality  and  Freedom,  whence  the 
ideals  of  religions  and  ethics.  These  forms, 
categories,  ideas,  on  the  one  hand,  and  sensa- 
tions on  the  other,  are  the  elements  of  knowl- 
edges. They  are  blended  in  every  actual 
knowledge;  they  are  themselves  distinct,  dis- 
parate, incomparable,  admitting  no  derivation 


52  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

of  the  one  from  the  other.  Both  elements  are 
necessary  to  knowledge,  the  sense-element,  no 
less  than  that  with  which  Kant  contrasts  it. 
Hence,  as  sciences,  metaphysics  and  theology 
are  impossible;  for  Kant  could  find  no  material 
in  our  present  life  to  which  the  moulds  of 
reason  could  be  related  as  the  moulds  of  sense 
and  the  moulds  of  the  understanding  had 
been  found  by  Kant  to  be  related  to  their  con- 
tents. These  forms  of  reason,  these  ideas 
have  a  function;  namely,  a  regulative  one,  a 
moral  and  aesthetic  value. 

Kant's  view  of  knowledge  is  one  among 
many.  No  one  of  them  has  become  itself  a 
knowledge,  has  passed  the  tests  we  have 
enumerated,  Kant's  as  little  as  any.  Aristotle, 
Aquinas,  Hegel,  Spencer  and  thousands  on 
thousands  besides  have  tried  to  solve  the 
problem  of  the  origin,  nature  and  limits  of  our 
knowledge.  As  the  character  of  the  problem 
comes  to  be  better  understood,  the  attempted 
answers  appear  less  and  less  satisfactory.  We 
are  not  so  near  omniscience  as  philosophers 
are  inclined  to  suppose,  and  any  attempt  to 
exhibit  the  science  in  all  its  parts  and  as  a 
whole,  would  be  and  remain  an  attempt 
merely.  Should  Kant  himself  come  back  to 
life,  I  do  not  think  that  many  things  would 
astonish  him;  they  would  all  fit  easily  into  his 
system,  the  Roentgen  rays  and  all;  but  when 


EPISTEMOLOGY  53 

he  should  learn  what  the  mathematicians  and 
the  psychologists  have  made  out  of  that  space 
which  had  seemed  to  him  so  simple!  He 
would  hear  of  point-spaces  and  line-spaces,  of 
spaces  of  four  dimensions,  of  spaces  in  which 
the  proposition  about  the  angle-sum  of  a 
triangle  does  not  hold  true;  and  all  this  from 
the  geometers.  And  he  would  hear  the 
psychologists  discussing  the  origin  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  space  and  seeking  to  ascertain 
whether  there  are  any  universal  and  necessary 
elements  in  that  space  which  for  Kant  was  not 
analyzable  into  elements  at  all.  Would  he 
refrain  from  saying  to  himself,  "Truly  we 
epistemologists  were  as  were  the  chemists 
before  the  days  of  Sir  Humphrey  Davy,  when 
salt  was  held  to  be  an  element;  and  we  must 
have  many  more  knowledges  before  we  have 
a  complete  knowledge  of  knowledges"? 

Ah,  but  knowledge  is  then  a  knowledge  of 
something.  Of  what  ?  But  for  answers  to 
that  question,  you  must  consult  the  metaphy- 
sician. 


Metaphysics 


ABOUT  EXISTENCES 


METAPHYSICS 

ABOUT  EXISTENCES 

"We  are  botanists,"  say  the  first,  "we  have 
the  science  of  plants."  "But  there  are  no 
plants,"  say  the  others.  Is  it  possible  to 
imagine  that  the  botanists  will  ever  find  that 
others  will  deny  the  existence  of  the  very 
things  the  botanists  profess  to  know?  We  can 
already  dispense  with  the  madder,  the  vanilla, 
and  even  the  vine;  perhaps  we  shall  be  able  to 
get  along  without  vegetable  life  some  day. 
Will  the  sons  of  the  seventh  sons  of  botanists 
be  botanists  still,  and  will  all  the  sons  of  all 
the  rest  cry  out,  "There  never  were  any 
plants"?  And  may  some  of  the  botanists  then 
respond,  "It  is  even  so;  there  never  were  any 
plants;  there  never  will  be,  at  least,  in  any 
sense  that  you  attach  to  the  word  'being,'  but 
in  a  higher,  nobler,  diviner  sense,  they  are 
forever." 

Worse  than  this  imagined  state  of  the  future 
botanists  is  that  of  the  metaphysicians  to-day. 
"We  are  metaphysicians,"  they  say,  "we 
know  .  .  .  ours  is  the  knowledge  of  ...  we 
have  the  science  of  ...  of  ...  of  ...  of." 
"Of  what,  pray"?  asks  some  impatient  earth- 

57 


58  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

ling.  "Of  God,  of  Heaven  and  Hell,  of  a 
Future  State,  of  the  Beginning  and  Ending  of 
the  Universe?"  What  will  be  the  reply  of  the 
metaphysicians?  I  hesitate  somewhat  to 
report  it.  I  may  have  failed  to  understand  it. 
Many  a  metaphysician  may  rise  up  and  say, 
"Such  is  not  my  answer."  There  has  never 
been  a  Congress  of  Metaphysicians  pure  and 
simple;  rather,  "Journals  of  Pure  and  Applied 
Metaphysics."  They  are  so  different  from  us 
others.  They  have  to  use  our  language  in 
talking  with  us;  but  we  soon  become  aware 
that,  though  they  may  resemble  us  in  having 
ideas,  the  ideas  themselves  are  so  unlike  our 
own  that  thfe  same  language  is  the  same  only 
in  sound.  But  in  this  respect  we  fare  no  worse 
with  the  metaphysician  than  with  the  adept  in 
any  other  science.  What  the  mathematician 
may  mean  by  "tangent"  .  is  something  so 
different  from  what  we  mean,  that  we  might 
not  be  able  to  comprehend  him  after  all  his 
efforts  to  make  himself  understood.  A  "tan- 
gent" may  be  to  him  the  limit  of  the  sum  of 
any  infinite  number  of  terms  of  a  certain  con- 
verging series;  and  he  would  explain  to  us 

1  .    It  •  !>    4<  •  »l    It  »  1    441'  '*>» 

what   series,     converging,     sum,    and   limit 
mean.      So     far    we     discern     no    difference 
between    the    mathematician    and    the  meta- 
physician;    both     use    equally    unintelligible 
language.     The  difference  emerges  later.     All 


METAPHYSICS  59 

the  statements  of  the  mathematician  are 
exemplified  by  material  found  within  the 
range  of  a  human  experience;  the  meta- 
physician, by  his  own  declaration,  is  endeavor- 
ing to  transcend  the  limitations  of  human 
experience.  No  wonder  then  that  I  hesitate 
to  report  his  answer  to  the  earthling's  ques- 
tion; but  it  would  seem  to  be  about  as  follows: 

"We  remember  that  men  used  in  the  brave 
old  days  to  resort  to  our  predecessors  for  the 
answers  to  their  questions  about  God  and 
Eternity;  some  continue  to  do  so;  but  we  no 
longer  think  that  the  people's  imaginings 
about  the  Universe  are  to  be  allowed  any 
influence  on  our  purely  scientific,  objective, 
and  disinterested  investigation.  To  state  our 
case  strongly:  If  there  were  no  Earth,  no 
Heaven  and  no  God,  and  if  we  were  in  Hell, 
the  problems  of  metaphysics  would  remain 
the  same;  the  only  difference  being  that  we 
might  have  less  inclination,  if  more  leisure,  to 
attend  to  them." 

Suppose,  as  will  presently  be  the  case,  that 
we  have  all  left  the  room,  what  will  be  here 
then?  "Settees,  chairs,  tables,  books,"  you 
reply.  How  do  you  know?  "From  experience 
if  not  of  this,  of  similar  relations.  In  the  first 
place,  if  we  come  back,  we  find  these  things 
here."  But  how  do  you  know  that  they  were 
here  while  you  were  away?  "It  has  often 


60  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

happened  that  while  some  left  the  room, 
others  stayed;  and  again  when  another  set 
left  the  room,  yet  others  stayed  and  so  on  in 
all  possible  combinations  of  the  occupants  of 
the  room;  and  we  have  found  on  comparing 
our  experiences  that  in  no  case  did  the 
departure  of  some,  so  far  as  the  others  who 
were  left  could  observe,  make  any  difference 
in  these  things.  Hence  we  have  concluded 
that  the  departure  of  all  of  us  from  the  room 
has  left  books,  settees  and  desks  just  as  we 
knew  them.  Moreover,  on  our  return  we  have 
often  found  the  hands  of  a  clock,  the  sands  of 
an  hourglass,  the  logs  on  the  fire,  in  a 
different  position  from  that  in  which  we  had 
left  them  indeed,  yet  having  undergone  only 
such  changes  as  we  had  frequently  observed 
them  to  undergo  when  we  have  been  present. 
When  we  are  remote  from  the  room,  we  retain 
a  representation  of  the  room,  which  we  call 
our  knowledge  of  the  room;  and  if  it  is  ques- 
tioned, we  test,  or  verify,  our  knowledge  by 
going  to  the  spot  and  comparing  our  repre- 
sentation with  the  locality  itself;  or  when  a 
second  resort  to  the  place  has  appeared 
undesirable,  we  have  had  recourse  to  some  of 
the  numerous  indirect  ways  which  all  involved 
the  same  process  of  testing  an  idea  by  com- 
paring it  with  the  reality.  For  these  are  our 
realities;  books,  chairs,  settees,  tables,  and 


METAPHYSICS  6 1 

such  as  these  are  the  realities  of  which  we 
say  that  we  have  knowledge  when  the  ideas 
we  form  of  them  have  been  tested  in  the 
ways  which  the  epistemologist  prescribes. 
These  were  before  we  were  born  and  will  be 
when  we  are  dead.  Our  sleeping  and  our 
waking  affect  them  not.  We  want  no  other 
realities  than  these.  When  we  say  that 
angels  exist,  that  God  exists,  we  mean  just 
what  we  mean  when  we  say  that  this  book  or 
that  tree  exists.  When  we  talk  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  thing,  the  knowledge  and  the 
thing  are  not  identical  but  distinct;  the 
knowledge  is  a  psychical  state,  the  thing 
is  ...  is".  .  .  "What,"  asks  the  meta- 
physician .  .  .  "is  ...  is  the  thing,  the 
reality,  not  a  psychical  state". 

I  trust  that  I  have  done  no  injustice  to  your 
views  by  the  expressions  that  I  have  ascribed 
to  you.  Have  not  some  philosophers  the  same? 
Then  the  metaphysician  must  appear  to  you 
a  ...  something  quite  different  from  what 
you  are.  He  amuses  you.  You  recall  the 
useful  Irishman:  "Pat,  what  are  you  standing 
there  for  in  front  of  the  mirror  with  your 
eyes  shut?"  "I'm  trying  to  see  how  I  look 
when  I  am  asleep."  The  metaphysician 
appears  to  you  to  be  trying  to  see  how  things 
look  when  no  one  is  looking  at  them.  Some 
fine  day  a  sort  of  Roentgen  ray  may  pass 


62  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

through  Pat's  closed  eyelids,  and  the  laugh 
will  be  on  his  side  then.  But  I  am  not  certain 
that  the  metaphysician  will  be  any  nearer  his 
aim  by  such  a  vision. 

You  are  sure  of  your  ground.  There  things 
are;  open  your  eyes  and  see  them;  reach  out 
your  hand  and  touch  them.  What  you  like 
is  plain  common  sense;  and  this  is  the  view  of 
common  sense. 

Poor,  simple,  misguided,  mistaken  folk. 
Enter,  not  the  metaphysician,  but  the  man  of 
science;  which  you  value  now-a-days  even 
above  common  sense.  What  does  he  say? 
"You  may  think  of  the  room  you  have  quitted 
in  terms  of  your  consciousness  when  there; 
and  you  may  get  along  well  enough  with  your 
associates  in  doing  so;  but  I  cannot  do  any 
thing  of  the  kind.  Do  you  not  know  that  the 
clock  is  not  ticking  in  your  absence?  It  is 
moving  and  setting  particles  of  air  in  motion 
There  is  no  sound  in  the  untenanted  room. 
Do  you  not  know  that  your  sight  of  the  room 
results  from  the  stirring  of  the  nerves  of  the 
eye  by  movements  of  the  ether?  There  are 
no  sights,  there  is  no  light  even  in  the  un- 
occupied room.  No  room  is  warm  when  no 
one  is  in  it.  The  chairs  and  tables  appear  as 
systems  of  molecules  and  atoms,  with  inter- 
spaces immensely  greater  than  the  diameters 
of  the  molecules  themselves.  In  the  room 


METAPHYSICS  63 

where  there  is  not  a  single  soul,  there  are  no 
sounds,  no  sights,  no  tastes  nor  touches  nor 
odors,  nothing  but  ether  and  atoms;  perhaps 
ether  alone,  for  some  of  us  have  found  a  way 
of  imagining  the  molecules  as  formed  out  of 
ether.  That  is  the  way  I  think  of  it."  So 
far  some  scientist. 

But  the  uninhabited  space  of  science  as  little 
satisfies  the  metaphysician  as  the  uninhabited 
space  of  common  sense.  "This  ether,"  he 
says,  ''and  these  atoms  are  only  the  counter- 
glare  of  your  common-sense  experience." 
Waves  of  water  and  bullets  of  lead — these, 
attenuated,  diminished,  refined,  flung  through- 
out space,  are  the  original  of  your  conceptions. 
They  explain  nothing  and  have  no  other 
justification  in  my  judgment  than  that  they 
serve  as  counters  to  calculate  with,  the  result 
in  any  case  requiring  to  be  translated  into  the 
realities  of  common  sense.  These  things  are 
only  what  you  imagine  them  to  be  there.  My 
question  is:  "What  is  there"?  and  the  answers 
to  this  question  will  give  me  what  I  shall  call 
Realities  of  Existence. 

Again,  here  is  an  apple;  it  has  certain 
qualities;  it  is  different  from  its  qualities;  its 
qualities  change;  we  can  say  of  it:  It  is  red,  it 
is  round,  it  is  mellow.  What  is  this  "it"  that 
we  are  talking  about?  The  qualities,  it  is  said, 
cannot  exist  by  themselves;  they  belong  to 


64          SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

something.  We  will  call  this  something, 
whether  we  find  it  or  not  and  whatever  it  may 
turn  out  to  be,  the  Principle  of  Substance,  or 
the  substance-reality. 

Again,  when  we  say  that  every  event  has  a 
cause  (and  you  do  not  question  this),  we  want 
to  know  the  real  cause  and  do  not  want  to  be 
put  off  with  merely  sham  causes,  we  want  the 
principle  of  cause  or  the  cause-reality.  By  this 
is  not  meant  what  the  layman  or  the  scientist 
calls  cause,  not  the  sensible  or  the  objective 
cause,  not  any  merely  conceived  cause;  but  a 
cause  the  reality  of  which  is,  in  some  way, 
guaranteed  as  independent  of  our  experience. 

I  come  now  to  the  assignment  of  yet  another 
metaphysical  principle.  You  would  say  that 
there  exist  in  nature  what  you  call  classes. 
But  these  classes,  for  you,  consist  of  a  number 
of  individuals  which  resemble  one  another,  do 
they  not?  Now  have  you  ever  thought  what 
this  implies?  There  are  cats,  trees,  whales, 
and  so  forth;  if  you  are  asked  whether  an 
object  is  a  cat  or  not,  you  compare  it  with  per- 
ceived or  remembered  cats,  and  according  to 
its  likeness  or  unlikeness  to  these  you  decide 
whether  it  is  a  cat  or  not.  What,  I  ask,  is  the 
foundation  of  this  resemblance?  How  came 
these  objects  to  resemble  one  another,  unless 
there  is  a  something  which  they  have  in  com- 
mon? Is  not  this  common  something  one 


METAPHYSICS  65 

thing;  and  yet  present  in  each  and  every  one 
of  the  objects  which  you  call  cats,  for  instance? 
No  two  of  these  cats  are  precisely  alike;  they 
all  differ  in  countless  particulars;  and  yet 
each  as  a  cat,  somehow  partakes  of  the  nature 
of  that  cat-reality  which  determines  it  to  be 
that  which  it  is  so  far  as  it  is  a  member  of  the 
class  of  cats.  This  cat,  the  real  cat,  which  is 
latent  in  each  phenomenal  cat,  this  meta- 
physical entity,  this  being  the  reality  of  which 
immeasurably  transcends  the  so-called  reality 
of  those  things  which  the  layman  and  the 
scientist  call  real,  is  a  universal;  and  there 
would  seem  to  be  as  many  universals  as  there 
are  distinct  or  different  classes.  These  uni- 
versals I  will  call  the  Principles  of  Classes  or 
the  class-realities.  These  principles  of  meta- 
physics, to  even  a  greater  degree  than  any 
other,  have  occupied  the  thoughts  of  men,  if 
we  may  judge  by  the  number  of  books  extant 
and  the  fame  of  their  expounders.  Where 
hundreds  now  gather  to  hear  Weierstrass  or 
Lord  Kelvin  explain  their  great  discoveries  in 
the  sciences  of  which  they  are  respectively 
masters,  thousands  once  flocked  to  listen  to 
the  disclosures  of  the  great  thinkers  on  the 
doctrine  of  universals,  an  Anselm  or  a  William 
of  Champeaux. 

I  have  not  yet  finished  the  enumeration  of 
the  principles  or,  if  you  please,  the  realities  of 


66  SWAIN    SCHOOL   LECTURES 

the  metaphysicians.  Here  emerges  another: 
Is  each  individual  a  member  of  an  infinite 
number  of  classes,  or  is  there  always  one  class, 
to  which  in  strict  sense  it  may  be  said  properly 
to  belong, — a  class  of  one?  Metaphysicians 
have  chosen  the  second  alternative.  Now 
what  is  there  that  constitutes  any  individual 
in  this  class  and  makes  it  that  which  it  is,  an 
individual?  Could  this  be  detected,  dis- 
covered, discerned,  disclosed, — what  shall  I 
say? — envisaged,  intuited,  we  might  find  in 
it  the  Principle  of  Individuation,  the  individual 
entity. 

But  how  many  principles  have"  we  already? 
This  too  is  a  point  debated  among  meta- 
physicians. How  many  entities,  realities,  are 
there?  Entia  non  sunt  multiplicands  praeter 
necessitatem,  "There  may  not  be  as  many 
entities  as  you  suppose";  but  what  is  the 
criterion  of  necessity?  Can  an  enumeration 
be  exhaustive?  Cannot  one  determine  in 
advance,  deductively,  the  actual  number,  or 
approximate  to  it  with  some  probability?  We 
have,  I  think,  five  already:  The  principle  of 
existence,  the  principle  of  substance,  the 
principle  of  cause,  the  principle  of  class,  and 
the  principle  of  individuation.  Why  just  five 
principles?  Why  not  more  than  five?  Why 
not  fewer?  Let  us  linger  a  moment  and 
inquire  how  these  words  and  the  conceptions 


METAPHYSICS  67 

for  which  they  are  presumed  to  stand  came 
into  our  minds. 

As  respects  the  words  that  denote  these 
metaphysical  entities,  they  are  plainly  taken 
from  the  names  of  perceived  and  experienced 
things.  It  was  of  course  not  possible  to  take 
any  word  whatever,  but  only  such  as  seemed 
to  denote  something  not  altogether  unlike  the 
thing,  for  thing  we  must  call  it,  that  was  to  be 
named.  All  along,  however,  the  protest  has 
been  uttered  that  these  words  were  intended 
to  stand  for  something  different  from  that 
which  they  had  previously  meant,  and  the 
warning  has  been  given  that  the  old  associa- 
tions must  not  be  permitted  to  intrude  into  the 
new  sphere.  As  for  the  conceptions  them- 
selves, if  conceptions  they  may  be  called,  for 
we  must  call  them  by  some  name  however 
unfitting, — one  story  of  their  origin  runs  some- 
what as  follows:  Primitive  men  were  haunted 
by  the  images  of  their  fellows.  The  actual 
presence,  the  remembrances,  the  shadows  of 
their  forms,  the  reflection  of  them  from  any 
polished  surface,  the  dreams  and  the  visions— 
what  shall  I  say? — not  animated,  but  "cor- 
porated"  everything  else.  Even  now  cultured 
people  cannot  rid  themselves  of  the  habit 
of  seeing  human  faces  and  forms  in  the 
shapes  of  clouds  and  the  patterns  of  wall- 
paper; even  now  poets  and  sculptors  and 


68  SWAIN   SCHOOL   LECTURES 

painters  hearken  back  to  the  old  illusion. 
Critics  talk  of  personifications  of  beauty, 
youth,  justice,  vice,  death,  pleasure  and  the 
rest,  without  seeming  to  be  aware  that  these 
words  stood  originally  for  persons,  and  that 
they  have  not  yet  become  so  thoroughly 
depersonified  as  clearness  of  thought  requires 
that  they  should  become.  If  it  is  still  thought 
a  finer  thing  to  see  "the  wind's  feet  glance 
along  the  sea"  than  to  think  the  thought  of 
sea  and  air  sundered  from  human  elements,— 
a  thought  to  which  a  few  have  attained;  how 
could  the  men  of  earlier  time  escape  this 
obsession  of  the  throng  of  recollections  of 
their  man-environed  life  which  spread  them- 
selves through  their  world  as  gods,  angels, 
spirits,  fairies,  devils,  goblins,  ghosts,  material- 
izations and  all  the  fair  and  ugly  humanities  of 
old  and  new  religions?  As  time  wears  on  and 
experience  slowly  displaces  these  images  from 
one  realm  of  thought  after  another  and  in 
spite  of  many  reversions  and  back-slidings,  a 
new  world  builds  itself  up  within  us;  we 
become  able  to  look  back  over  the  long  proc- 
ess of  the  gradual  obliteration  of  the  old 
conceptions,  and  1;o  see  that  the  meta- 
physicians without  being  aware  of  the  fact 
were  wrestling  in  their  minds  with  the  dim 
lingering  traces  of  the  old  concretions  that  had 
clung  necessarily  to  their  ancestors'  thoughts. 


METAPHYSICS  69 

It  is  a  century-long  struggle  so  to  revolutionize 
our  spirits,  that  all  things  shall  become  new  to 
us.  Humanitas  began  as  a  word  for  that 
which  was  in  man,  in  men;  it  stood  originally 
for  a  reality  that  was  corporeal  enough,  and 
the  scholastic  battles  over  Universals,  the  dis- 
putes of  the  realists,  the  conceptualists,  the 
nominalists  were  unavoidable  stages  in  the 
evolution  of  mankind.  Let  not  anyone  flatter 
himself  to-day  that  he  has  finally  emerged 
from  this  entanglement  of  ideas.  Many  of  us 
are  as  deeply  involved  in  it  as  ever  and  there 
are  some  who,  in  lieu  of  struggling  to  extricate 
themselves,  resist  the  efforts  of  others  to 
extricate  them.  Hegel  had  not  emerged  from 
it,  nor  has  Herbert  Spencer.  The  treatment 
of  gravitation,  heat,  light  by  the  former;  of 
force,  energy  by  the  latter,  attest  this.  The 
biologists  have  not  released  themselves  from 
the  bonds  of  the  past  as  long  as  they  seek  for 
what  was  called  the  natural  system  of  classi- 
fication. Those  mathematicians  have  not 
risen  above  the  scholastic  point  of  view  who 
still  wrangle  over  their  zeros,  their  infinitesi- 
mals, their  negatives,  infinites  and  imaginaries. 
No  one  of  us  but  is  still  in  bondage  if  he 
believes  in  the  existence  of  any  one  of  these 
principles  that  we  have  enumerated,  if  he 
holds  that  there  are  any  other  realities  than 
those  of  common  sense  or  if  he  ascribes  to 


7O  SWAIN   SCHOOL    LECTURES 

these  more  persistence,  extent  and  value  than 
the  evidence  warrants;  in  short,  if  he  believes 
that  a  science  of  metaphysics  is  possible. 

Now  most  philosophers  are  as  little  content 
with  this  account  of  the  origin  of  these  ideas 
as  they  are  with  this  estimate  of  their  value. 
They  are  somewhat  better  satisfied  with  the 
first  description  of  their  nature  that  I  gave  in 
trying  to  make  them  intelligible  to  you  and 
to  myself.  In  accordance  with  this,  these 
ideas  are  arrived  at  by  a  process  of  abstraction 
which  thinks  away  what  is  peculiar  to  any  indi- 
vidual or  to  any  one  state  of  that  individual, 
and  retains  what  is  common  to  all.  Let  me  say 
rather,  There  remains  what  is  common  to  all 
which  is  not  to  be  accounted  for  on  any  theory 
of  the  survival  in  our  minds  of  some  residues 
of  the  irrelevant  conceptions  of  our  ancestors. 

What  are  these  principles  then  for?  At  this 
point  the  opinions  of  metaphysicians  are 
divided;  but  before  exhibiting  the  divisions,  I 
must  present  another  mode  of  deriving  these 
principles  and  also  adduce  a  few  more  of  the 
principles  themselves. 

It  has  been  stated  (in  the  lecture  on  Episte- 
mology)  that  every  inference  resembles  the  rule 
of  three,  and  runs  in  this  way  nearly:  As  a  is 
to  b,  so  is  a  to  b',  where  a  is  something 
thought  to  resemble  a,  and  U  is  a  conception 
which  resembles  b.  In  conformity  with  this 


METAPHYSICS  7 1 

scheme,  one  may  say:  As  your  idea  of  the 
elm  tree  on  our  corner  is  to  the  tree  which  at 
this  moment  you  do  not  see,  so  is  the  tree  as 
you  gaze  at  it  to — what? — to  a  something  which 
stands  to  the  tree  in  the  relation  that  the  tree 
stands  to  your  idea  of  it.  Of  course  the  desire 
is  to  test  this  inference,  to  find  out  whether 
this  thing  that  the  tree  is  said  to  stand  for,  to 
represent,  is  as  it  is  conceived  to  be.  That  we 
are  unable  to  do  so,  is  no  impugnment  of  the 
inference;  we  are  as  little  able  to  test  our 
inferences  as  to  the  nature  of  the  interior  of 
the  earth.  There  is  however  no  question  that 
the  center  of  the  earth  exists  in  the  same  sense 
in  which  the  surface  exists;  here  we  are  deal- 
ing with  the  product  of  a  precarious  inference 
which  is  not  merely  inaccessible  to  our  tests, 
but  unamenable  to  them. 

Out  of  the  multitude  of  metaphysical 
principles  I  select  one  more,  which  I  will  try  to 
describe.  That  which  thinks,  knows  and 
feels,  it  is  said,  is  not  itself  either  thought  cr 
knowledge  or  feeling.  It  is  that  of  which 
these  are  the  acts,  the  properties,  the 
attributes.  What  is  its  nature,  or  as  he  would 
add,  its  inmost  nature,  its  essence,  is  the  meta- 
physician's question.  He  even  finds  here  a 
fourth  mode  of  essaying  the  problem  of  his 
science  in  general. 

Not  by  the  abstraction  of  perceived  qualities, 


72  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

not  by  the  survival  through  inheritance  of  the 
residual  conceptions  of  a  vanished  barbarism, 
not  by  inference  from  the  extension  to  another 
realm  of  the  relation  between  idea  and 
percept,  were  the  metaphysician's  principles 
attained;  but  the  mind  is  itself  now  appre- 
hendent  of  its  own  essence  and  of  these  other 
principles;  and  a  knowledge  or  something 
higher  than  knowledge  is  vindicated  to  man, 
an  intuition  of  realities  that  are  really  real, 
that  is,  are  metaphysical  realities.  Through 
the  disguises  of  appearances,  the  shows  and 
shadows  and  reflections  of  things,  to  the  meta- 
physician first  and  after  him  to  others  of  man- 
kind belike,  stand  revealed  things  as  they  are 
in  their  own  nature,  things  in  themselves. 
Or,  looking  not  forward,  but  backward,  some 
have  maintained  that  in  some  prior  state  of 
existence,  those  realities  were  beheld  of  which 
the  things  of  sense  are  the  transient  and 
temporary  adumbration. 

Are  there  any  other  ways  of  establishing  the 
existence  of  a  reality  independent  of  our  con- 
sciousness? Do  these  ways  lead  to  that? 
And  if  by  these  or  any  other  paths  the  meta- 
physician attains  what  he  seeks,  can  he  tell  us 
anything  of  his  quarry?  We  do  not  want 
eloquence;  we  do  not  want  emotions;  we  do 
not  want  edicts;  we  want  knowledge,  and 
since  knowledge  is  as  ambiguous  as  the  word 


METAPHYSICS  73 

dollar  unfortunately  is,  we  want  knowledge  of 
the  weight  and  fineness  that  was  described  in 
our  epistemology.  I  do  not  deny  that  they 
may  have  reached  something  other  than  that, 
and,  that  this  other  may  be  something  better 
than  that;  but  that  precisely  is  what  I  want  of 
them,  at  least  in  my  present  mood.  Let  us 
hear  their  statements  first. 

These  principles  are  many.  They  are 
reducible  to  a  few  which  are  absolutely  distinct 
from  one  another.  They  are  reducible  to  one. 
They  are  unknowable  beyond  the  mere  fact 
that  they  exist.  They  are  knowable,  and 
assertions  are  possible  about  them.  It  is 
matter.  It  is  mind.  It  is  the  unity  of  both. 
It  is  neither.  We  may  pass  over  the  answers 
that  were  given  before  the  scientific  problem 
was  definitely  distinguished  from  the  meta- 
physical problem;  as,  it  is  water;  it  is  fire;  it  is 
air;  it  is  spirit.  To  resume  the  later  answers: 
It  is  consciousness.  It  is  unconsciousness.  It 
is  intelligence.  It  is  will.  It  is  imagination. 
It  is  timeless.  It  is  spaceless.  It  is  God, 
either  invested  with  all  the  attributes  that  the 
popular  mythologies  ascribe  to  the  object  of 
their  adoration,  or  divested  of  them  all.  It  is 
as  independent  of  God  as  of  man.  And  then 
follow  all  the  more  abstract  determinations: 
It  is  fate.  It  is  power.  It  is  substance.  It  is 
cause.  It  is  tendency.  It  is  habit.  It  is 


74  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

distinct  from  the  knowable  world.  It  precedes 
nature.  It  pervades  nature.  It  follows  on 
nature.  Then  there  are  the  verbal  substitu- 
tions that  predicate  of  this  "It"  words  that 
have  more  show  of  meaning  and  a  fuller 
sound:  It  is  the  Infinite.  It  is  the  Absolute. 
It  is  the  Unconditioned.  It  is  the  Uncaused. 
It  is — but  stop! 

Here  arises,  not  only  the  man  of  common 
sense,  but  the  man  of  science-sense,  and  says: 
You  are  paying  us  with  words.  We  grant  that 
you  are  not  always  aware  of  it  yourself.  We 
see  into  you  and  through  you.  You  are  lead- 
ing us  no-whither.  You  profess  to  stand 
among  a  world  of  realities;  you  do  stand  amid 
the  images,  the  reflections,  the  shadows,  the 
refractions  of  our  worlds.  You  believe  or 
make  believe  that  you  are  supporting  the 
higher  interests  of  humanity  against  sloth  and 
sensuality,  appetite  and  hate,  conceit  and 
dearth  of  ideals.  You  do  this;  but  it  is  only  a 
part  of  your  influence — you  turn  the  best 
minds  away  from  thinking  and  doing  those 
things  on  which  knowledge,  faith,  conduct  and 
happiness  depend.  Give  me  rather  the  world 
of  my  boyhood,  the  world  of  warmth  and 
light,  of  colors  and  sounds,  of  roses  and 
cherries,  .yes,  of  colic  and  rhubarb  pills  than 
the  things  that  are  dreamt  of  in  your 
philosophy.  Or  let  me  keep  the  world  of  my 


METAPHYSICS  75 

maturer  age  with  its  air-waves,  ether-vibra- 
tions, eddying  atoms  and  molecules,  its 
calculus  of  numbers  and  vectors,  of  classes 
and  groups,  of  infinitesimals  and  infinites;  its 
strifes  and  victories,  its  failures  and  defeats 
even,  rather  than  this  unimaginable,  incon- 
ceivable, unverified  and  unverifiable  hypo- 
thetical world  of  yours.  We  are  amazed  that 
you  seek  God  and  souls  in  that  inane,  or  call  it 
after  your  fashion,  The  Inane,  though  I  am 
unable  to  pronounce  the  initials  as  capitals. 

But  a  voice  from  another  quarter  is  heard,— 
dreaded  alike  by  the  metaphysician,  the 
scientist  and  the  way-faring  man.  You  might 
call  it  the  utterance  of  a  "State  Board  of 
Arbitration."  Really,  the  decencies  and 
proprieties  must  be  observed.  Let  us  be 
courteous.  You  are  hypothesis-makers  all  of 
you;  and  hypothesis  for  hypothesis,  the  meta- 
physician's seems  to  us  others  to  be  eminently 
desirable  for  the  promotion  of  utility,  nobility, 
beauty  and  sanctity,  for  the  preservation  of 
Church  and  State,  for  the  continuance  of  our 
administration  of  them,  in  a  realm  where  men 
must  believe  that  you  are  standing  on  the 
bed-rock,  whether  you  are  or  not,  and  they 
will  believe  it  all  the  more  readily  if  they  can- 
not comprehend  the  arguments  by  which  you 
claim  to  support  it. 

Now  there  are  candid  souls  that  abhor  this 


76  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

duplicity  as  it  seems  to  them  to  be.  To  some 
these  metaphysical  conceptions  are  realities, 
and  they  refuse  to  call  them  hypotheses.  To 
others  these  conceptions  are  hypotheses 
indeed,  but  illegitimate  ones,  and  by  no  means 
conducive  to  human  welfare  in  any  respect, 
least  of  all  in  contributing  to  keep  a  certain 
eminent  statesman  in  office.  Nothing  can  be 
done  with  them,  nothing  can  be  made  of 
them;  nothing  can  be  inferred  from  them. 
The  sooner  humanity  leaves  them  behind, 
the  better;  renounces  too  its  notion  that  these 
thoughts  are  high  and  exalted,  that  they  are 
God  and  Immortality,  that  they  lead  to  God 
and  Immortality,  that  they  are  any  nearer  to 
them  than  the  mud  at  our  feet.  The  constitu- 
tion of  mud,  its  causes  and  conditions,  its 
effects,  what  can  be  inferred  from  mud  and 
from  what  mud  can  be  inferred,  the  feelings, 
beliefs,  purposes  and  intentions  of  men  in 
regard  to  it, — these  can  be  ascertained,  known; 
and  this  is  the  only  knowledge  we  need  or 
can  use.  There  is  no  principle  nor  reality  of 
mud  apart  from  these.  Existence  means  the 
known  and  the  knowable.  An  unknowable 
existence  as  something  different  from  the 
known  and  the  knowable,  is  a  contradiction. 
Non-existences  are  neither  known  nor  know- 
able;  and  there  is  no  desire  to  know  them. 
An  unknowable  existence  is  simply  an 


METAPHYSICS  77 

existence  that  is  not  directly  presented  or  that 
we  have  no  data  for  ascertaining  the  nature  of; 
not  something  different  in  nature  from  the 
known  and  the  knowable.  Knowledges  are 
psychical  states;  but  what  is  mud?  Mud  is 
something  known  or  knowable.  Would  there 
be  no  mud,  if  there  had  been  no  consciousness? 
We  have  no  data  for  answering  this  question. 
Consciousness  is  as  much  as  mud  is.  Both 
are  existences;  and  the  question  can  be 
answered  when  we  are  in  a  condition  to 
answer  this  other  question:  Would  there  not 
be  three-eighths  of  existence,  if  the  other  five- 
eighths  had  not  been?  Perceived  mud,  re- 
membered mud,  foreseen  mud,  imagined  mud, 
desired  mud,  hated  mud, — these  exist,  and 
resemble  one  another  in  certain  aspects;  but 
a  mud  which  is  not  one  of  these  or  like  one  of 
these  does  not  exist.  A  principle  of  mud,  the 
reality  of  mud,  a  mud  out  of  all  relation  to 
me,  I  neither  know  nor  desire  to  know.  If 
anyone  asserts  an  existence  of  a  perceived 
chair  where  there  is  no  one  to  perceive  it,  I 
can  attach  no  meaning  to  his  assertion.  If  he 
says  that  it  is  always  perceived  when  I  do  not 
perceive  it  by  some  being  whom  he  may,  if 
he  please,  identify  with  his  God,  I  have  not 
his  insight  nor  evidence.  If  he  says  that  there 
is  then  an  unknown  something  there,  I  say,  it 
is  surely  unknown  to  me;  and  as  he  declares 


78  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

that  it  is  unknown  to  him,  we  cannot  talk 
about  it,  particularly  if  he  too  identifies  it  in 
part  at  least  with  his  God.  "Well,  don't  you 
at  any  rate  believe  that  it  exists?"  I  reply, 
"To  exist  means  to  me  to  be  known  or  like 
the  known."  If  you  mean  differently,  I  do  not 
begrudge  you  the  satisfaction  of  ruminating  on 
you  know  not  what;  though  I  will  listen  to  you 
when  you  go  on  to  say:  "Das  Sein  ist  Nichts, 
-  (Pure  Being  is  Nothing);  but  in  positing  itself, 
nothing  necessarily  posits  the  possibility  of  its 
negation,  but  the  negation  of  nothing  is  some- 
thing, and  indeed  something  in  its  nakedness, 
something  as  yet  undetermined,  unlimited, 
the  nascency  of  existence,  related  to  the  pre- 
vious (not  antecedent  in  time,  note,  for  as  yet 
time  is  not)  state  of  nothing  through  the 
intermediation  of  the  Becoming  (das  Werden] 
and,  as  all  philosophers  know,  the  continued 
application  of  the  dialectic  process  will  at 
length  establish  the  existence  of  mud."  I 
listen,  I  say,  because  you  finally  arrive  at  a 
point  where  you  say  something  about  the 
world  in  which  I  live  that  no  one  else  has 
noted. 

I  have  purposely  avoided  all  mention  of 
materialism,  idealism,  monism,  identism, 
nihilism,  realism,  and  the  many  other  names 
by  which  the  theories  of  metaphysicians  are 
called.  These  names  originated  at  a  time 


METAPHYSICS  /9 

when  the  sciences,  particularly  psychology, 
had  not  attained  the  development  which  they 
have  at  present.  They  have  been  taught  to 
those  who  did  not  know  the  conditions  under 
which  they  were  first  introduced.  They  have 
been  repeated  in  such  vague  groupings  of 
words  that  they  convey  no  precise  meaning 
even  to  those  familiar  with  these  speculations. 
Their  meaning  can  be  acquired  only  by  living 
in  imagination  through  the  state  of  thought 
they  represent.  And  many  both  within  and 
without  that  sacred  confine  subscribe  to  the 
Frenchman's  definition  of  Metaphysics:  Lart 
dc  sdgarer  avec  mdthode;  or,  La  science  dcs  chases 
inconnues. 

But  the  situation  seems  to  me  to  be  this: 
Many  years,  perhaps  centuries,  must  pass, 
many  sciences  be  perfected  of  which  we  dis- 
cern merely  the  intimations,  many  things  that 
we  wish  now  must  have  ceased  to  be  of  con- 
cern to  us,  the  knowledge  of  many  facts  of 
mind  and  language,  now  restricted  to  a  few, 
must  become  the  possession  of  the  people; 
before  we  have  even  the  foundation  laid  of 
the  superstructure  which  some  fancy  that  they 
have  built  already;  and  yet  it  is  only  by  the 
downfall  of  their  towers  that  we  can  learn 
where  the  foundation  needed  strengthening. 
All  honor  then  to  those  who  have  tried  and 
who  have  failed. 


Logic 

ABOUT  THINGS  AS  RELATED 


LOGIC 

ABOUT  THINGS  AS  RELATED 

''The  Highlanders,"  said  Dr.  Johnson,  "are 
not  much  accustomed  to  be  interrogated  by 
others,  and  seem  never  to  have  thought  upon 
interrogating  themselves;  so  that,  if  they  do 
not  know  what  they  tell  to  be  true,  they  like- 
wise do  not  distinctly  perceive  it  to  be  false." 
No  one  has  ever  thought  of  interrogating  him- 
self before  he  has  been  interrogated  by  others. 
Then  he  begins  to  discern  the  necessity  of 
being  prepared  for  the  next  interview.  He 
might  prefer  to  kill  the  troublesome  ques- 
tioner; but  failing  that  alternative,  he  must 
answer  him.  To  converse  with  ones  self  is  a 
Greek  phrase  for  thinking.  There  are  very 
few  to-day  that  have  emerged  from  the  con- 
dition of  thinking  conversationally,  that  is,  as 
if  others  were  present.  Knowledge  is,  as  I 
hope  we  see,  a  social  product.  Knowledge 
implies  thinking;  thinking  involves  self-ques- 
tioning; and  this  results  from  being  interro- 
gated by  others.  This  in  turn  is  not  possible 
without  language,  without  society. 

A  community  that  talks  matters  over, 
debates,  discusses,  disputes,  may  come  to  per- 

83 


84  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

ceive  that  the  discussions  sometimes  result  in 
a  convincement,  sometimes  not;  learns  at 
length  that  there  is  a  right  way  and  a  wrong 
way,  that  certain  rules  must  be  followed  or  no 
progress  can  be  made.  Out  of  such  conditions 
as  these  arose  logic.  In  its  origin  it  was  a 
body  of  rules  which  must  be  observed  by  all 
disputants  who  wish  other  than  a  merely 
verbal  agreement.  From  the  places  where 
men  met  together  these  rules  were  carried  to 
the  retirement  of  groves,  caves  and  halls  by 
those  given  to  solitary  musings,  and  were 
found  necessary  in  the  conduct  of  that  self- 
converse  to  which  they  were  devoted.  In  time 
these  rules  came  to  be  regarded  as  laws  of 
thinking  by  some  that  believed  a  profounder 
view  was  needed.  We  find  them  appearing 
later  as  laws  of  the  product  of  thinking.  They 
appear  again  under  a  slightly  different  aspect 
as  conditions  to  which  the  objects  of  thought 
must  conform.  They  are  viewed  later  as  laws 
of  phenomena,  that  is,  as  facts  of  the  world 
we  live  in;  general  aspects  which  things  as  we 
know  them  present.  But  this  was  not  enough, 
and  some  philosophers  have  maintained  that 
whatever  might  have  been  the  origin,  the  pur- 
pose, the  applications,  the  transformations  of 
these  precious  discoveries,  they  are  metaphys- 
ical truths,  laws  of  a  Universe  absolutely  inde- 
pendent of  all  human  volition  and  cognition. 


LOGIC  85 

Not  only  have  such  controversies  raged  in 
regard  to  the  nature  of  these — what  shall  I 
call  them?  —  principles,  but  these  principles 
themselves  have  been  derided  and  rejected  as 
frivolous  subtilities  unworthy  the  attention  of 
any  sensible  man.  Others  have  seized  the 
name  logic  and  applied  it  at  one  time  to 
theological  mysteries,  to  metaphysical  specula- 
tions, to  scientific  procedures  and  to  psycho- 
logical processes.  But  the  confusion  which  is 
the  inevitable  accompaniment  of  the  origin 
and  growth  of  ideas  appears  to  be  giving  place 
to  order  and  system,  to  the  organization  of 
great  sciences.  In  the  realm  of  thought  into 
which  few  penetrate  there  are  revolutions  and 
developments  that  are  the  conditions,  the 
parallels,  the  consequences  of  those  great 
changes  which  manifest  themselves  to  the 
eyes  of  all,  the  vast  industrial  and  commercial 
equipments  of  modern  times.  The  part  of 
Logic  that  dealt  with  language  has  been 
handed  over  to  grammar,  rhetoric,  linguistics, 
philology.  Another,  dealing  with  a  peculiar 
class  of  relations  which  much  vexed  the  old 
logicians,  has  passed  under  the  domain  of  the 
Calculus  of  Probabilities,  a  branch  of  mathe- 
matics of  singular  refinement  and  delicacy, 
and  of  extreme  importance  in  statistical 
investigations.  Still  another  portion,  the  very 
nucleus  of  the  Aristotelian  logic,  has  rounded 


86  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

out  to  a  symmetrical  whole  they  saw  not  when 
they  moved  therein,  has  been  furnished  with  a 
system  of  signs,  borrowed  indeed  from 
ordinary  algebra,  in  order  that  skill  acquired 
in  the  manipulation  of  algebraic  formulas 
may  be  utilized  in  the  new  province,  but 
having  in  reality  as  little  to  do  with  algebra 
as  the  keyboard  of  a  typewriter  has  to  do  with 
the  keyboard  of  a  piano.  This  is  called  by 
some  the  Exact  Logic  and  Symbolic  Logic; 
and  is  made  up  of  several  related  disciplines; 
as,  the  calculus  of  classes  as  having  some,  or 
all,  or  no  members  in  common,  the  calculus 
of  relations  as  existing  or  not  existing,  and 
the  calculus  of  relatives.  I  am  going  to  give 
you  some  description  of  this  nucleus,  as  I 
have  termed  it,  of  the  Aristotelian  logic;  and 
contrast  the  ancient  and  the  modern  methods 
of  treatment.  This  contrast  is  very  significant, 
and  shows  that  one  of  the  triumphs  of  modern 
culture  is  the  emancipation  of  the  mind  from 
the  tyranny  of  language. 

My  first  aim  is  to  show  what  the  subject- 
matter  of  the  exact  logic  is.  My  next 
endeavor  will  be  to  show  wherein  it  differs 
from  the  subject-matter  of  the  old  logic,  as 
that  subject-matter  really  was;  and  to  contrast 
this  with  what  it  was  supposed  to  be.  In  the 
third  place,  the  admirable  notation  of  the 
modern  science  which  lends  itself  so  readily  to 


LOGIC  87 

purposes  of  calculation  is  to  be  contrasted  with 
the  clumsy  unmanageableness  of  the  former 
modes  of  expression. 

Where  now  do  we  find  the  things  with  which 
our  science  deals?  Objects  there  are,  castles, 
toads,  fears,  loves,  oceans,  shovels,  planets, 
angels,  pebbles,  fairies — why,  if  I  could  call 
over  the  names  of  all  the  languages  in  the 
world,  there  would  still  remain  just  as  many 
objects  unenumerated  as  when  I  first  began. 
Again  there  are  among  these  objects  rela- 
tions. You  cannot  think  a  relation  without 
thinking  at  least  two  objects.  You  cannot  think 
of  any  two  objects  without  discerning  one  or 
more  relations  between  them.  You  may  never 
have  thought  of  it  before  perhaps,  but  it  is  also 
true  that  you  never  have  thought  without  it. 

Objects  are  groupable  into  classes.  All  the 
objects  that  agree  in  the  fact  that  each  pos- 
sesses certain  specified  attributes  are  one 
class;  those  objects  that  possess  another  set 
of  attributes  are  another  class.  Now  the 
logician  would  fain  deal  with  such  classes  and 
all  the  relations  among  them,  but  nature  is 
too  intricate  for  him;  and  he  is  compelled  to 
do  what  all  scientists  are  driven  to  do,  each  in 
his  own  province,  to  abandon  the  complexity 
of  nature  and  to  substitute  some  simpler 
contrivance  of  his  own.  Nature's  objects 
change  unceasingly,  are  constantly  acquiring 


88          SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

and  losing  attributes,  and  altering  their  inten- 
sities or  degrees.  The  artificial  nature  which 
the  logician  puts  in  the  place  of  the  real 
nature  behaves  quite  otherwise.  Indeed  a  set 
of  chalk-lines  on  a  black-board,  each  carrying 
some  letter  of  the  alphabet,  will  amply  suffice 
for  our  present  purpose.  A  line  is  our  object 
and  the  letters  on  the  line  are  the  qualities  of 
that  object. ,  A  set  of  lines  is  called  a  universe— 
a  grand  name  for  so  slight  a  thing.  Some  of 
these  lines  are  a's  or  all  are  or  none  are;  some 
are  #s  perhaps  and  all  are  cs  and  none  are 
rtf's  and  so  on.  The  question  now  is  what  are 
the  different  relations  that  are  found  to  exist 
between  any  two  classes,  as  the  as  and  ^'s  for 
instance?  i.  In  our  first  universe  all  the  a  are 
b  and  all  the  b  are  a.  2.  In  the  second  all  the 
a  are  b,  but  some  of  the  b  are  not  a.  3.  In 
this  third  universe  some  of  the  a  are  not  b,  but 
all  of  the  b  are  a.  4.  See  in  our  fourth  uni- 
verse some  a  are  b  and  some  are  not,  and 
some  b  are  a  and  some  are  not.  5.  Lastly,  we 
have  a  universe  in  which  none  of  the  a  are  b 
and  none  of  the  b  are  a. 

These  were  the  only  classes  and  relation  of 
classes  that  the  old  logic  occupied  itself  with 
for  ages;  and  the  only  problem  to  which  it 
gave  a  solution  at  all  approaching  complete- 
ness was:  Given  the  relations  of  two  classes 
to  a  third,  required  to  determine  their  relation 


LOGIC  89 

to  each  other.  But  we  should  be  doing  them 
a  great  injustice  if  we  suppose  that  the  problem 
could  possibly  have  presented  itself  to  them 
in  any  such  simple  guise  as  that  in  which  I 
have  exhibited  it  to  you.  Their  thoughts  were 
not  shallow;  they  were  confused.  Perhaps 
"there  'burned'  a  truer  light  of  God  in  them  .  .  . 
than  goes  on  to  prompt  this  low-pulsed,  forth- 
right, craftsman's  'brain'  of  mine."  They  ap- 
proached the  subject  entangled  in  the  meshes 
of  language,  and  of  one  language  at  that.  But 
it  was  not  merely  the  misleading  associations 
of  language  and  the  ambiguities  of  expression 
that  they  had  to  contend  with;  there  were 
connections  of  thought  which  no  force  of 
genius,  nothing  but  long  experience  of  a 
variety  of  relations  could  break  up.  Even 
now  there  prevails  among  the  logicians  of  the 
old  school  a  natural  enough  inability  to  com- 
prehend what  it  is  that  the  exact  logicians  are 
aiming  at.  The  logician  was  a  rhetorician  in 
disguise;  he  still  retained,  often  without  know- 
ing it,  traces  of  his  previous  condition.  In 
theology,  in  law,  in  the  schools,  in  contro- 
versies, every  contestant  sought  to  win  the 
victory  by  showing  that  his  contention  was 
necessarily  implied  in  some  admission  of  his 
adversary.  The  question  which  science  raises: 
How  can  the  prevalence  of  that  admission  be 
tested,  has  given  rise  to  another  science,  the 


QO  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

science  of  "inductive  logic,"  with  which  we 
have  no  present  concern.  Nor  would  I  call 
this  exact  logic  of  ours  deductive  logic,  though 
they  are  frequently  and,  as  I  think,  mistakenly 
identified.  It  is  merely  an  application  of 
induction  and  deduction  to  the  ascertainment 
of  the  class-relations  that  certain  class-rela- 
tions imply.  We  study  the  properties  of  these 
universes,  as  I  have  called  them,  just  as  the 
naturalist  studies  an  oyster.  The  science  of 
these  universes  is  as  little  or  as  much  inductive 
or  deductive  logic  as  is  the  science  of  oysters. 
But  let  us  survey  some  aspects  of  the  old 
logic.  There  are  three  so-called  laws  about 
which  much  ado  has  been  made:  the  law  of 
identity,  the  law  of  contradiction,  and  the  law 
of  the  excluded  middle.  The  first  is  simply  the 
requirement  that  when  you  have  specified 
what  lines  of  your  universe  you  will  call  a,  you 
must  keep  calling  them  a  to  the  end  of  the 
chapter,  and  what  lines  you  have  called  not-a 
you  must  go  on  calling  not-a.  The  second 
merely  says  that  the  #-lines  must  not  be  called 
not-a,  and  the  not-a  must  not  be  called  a- 
lines.  The  third  is  only  the  injunction  that 
you  must  say  of  any  line  in  that  universe:  it  is 
either  an  a  or  it  is  not.  Important  enough 
are  these  rules  indeed  when  we  are  engaged 
in  controversy  or  thinking  by  ourselves  in  the 
seclusion  of  our  studies  or  pursuing  in  a 


LOGIC  QI 

laboratory  some  scientific  investigation;  and 
the  violation  of  them  entails  pretty  serious 
consequences,  whether  the  disregard  of  them 
is  intentional  or  unintentional;  but  why  should 
we  logicians  exalt  our  province  and  magnify 
our  function,  insisting  that  not  only  our  fellow 
men  but  all  nature  is  subject  to  these  regula- 
tions; and  not  the  nature  alone  which  we 
know,  but  the  nature  none  but  metaphysicians 
claim  to  know,  the  Absolute,  the  Real,  the 
Existentially  Existent?  The  as  of  nature 
manifest  no  such  fixity.  The  apple  which  a 
moment  ago  you  regarded  as  not  ripe  has 
become  ripe, — at  what  instant?  Evolutionism, 
whether  that  of  a  Spencer  'or  a  Hegel,  is  in 
one  aspect  a  protest  against  the  notion  that 
muscles  and  sensations  behave  as  we  agree  to 
play  that  the  lines  behave  which  we  draw  for 
our  universe.  So  much  for  the  laws  of 
thought;  they  have  a  simple  expression  in 
the  formulas  of  the  exact  logic.  With  their 
purport  to  others,  if  we  are  mistaken  about  it, 
we  really  do  not  need  to  concern  ourselves  at 
all;  and  we  may  safely  leave  the  more  pro- 
found meanings  which  it  would  be  foolish  to 
deny  that  they  may  have  to  the  devotees  of 
other  sciences,  or  nesciences. 

I  pass  to  another  feature  of  the  old  logic,— 
the  syllogism.  Here  is  a  specimen  of  that 
curious  product  of  human  ingenuity: 


92  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

1.  "Babies  are  illogical. 

2.  Illogical  persons  are  despised. 

3.  Babies  are  despised." 

It  consists  of  three  artifices  called  proposi- 
tions. The  schools  maintained  that  any  sen- 
tence could  be  transformed  to  propositions. 
Propositions  were  built  up  of  all  and  some,  is, 
and  are,  no  and  not,  a,  6,  c,  d,  and  so  forth. 
There  were  four  types  of  propositions: 

A.  All  a  are  k. 

I.  Some  afare  k. 

E.  No  v  are  m. 

O.  Some  g  are  not  /. 

There  are,  you  see,  two  letters  in  each 
proposition.  The  former  is  named  the  sub- 
ject; the  latter,  the  predicate.  The  syllogism 
with  which  the  logicians  actually  dealt  appears 
in  the  following  form: 

Some  x  are  not  m. 

Noj/  are  m. 

All  'x  are  jy. 

Two  of  the  propositions  have  one  letter  in 
common,  and  are  the  premises.  There  are 
three  letters  in  all;  and  the  proposition  which 
contains  the  two  remaining  letters  is  the  con- 
clusion. Its  subject  is  the  minor  term;  its 
predicate  the  major  term.  A  premise  is  major 
or  minor,  as  it  contains  the  major  or  the  minor 
term. 

Of  the  four  types  of  propositions  and  three 


LOGIC  93 

letters  512  distinct  syllogisms  can  be  made. 
These  are  divided  into  valid  and  invalid.  If 
the  premises  involve  the  conclusion,  the  syllo- 
gism is  valid;  otherwise,  invalid.  The  valid 
syllogisms  are  24.  The  elaborate  rules  for 
constructing,  for  transforming,  for  testing  syl- 
logisms interest  very  few.  They  have  now 
been  all  superseded  by  the  brilliant  discovery 
of  Mrs.  Ladd-Franklin  of  Baltimore,  who  has 
succeeded  in  replacing  them  all  by  a  simple 
test  and  expressing  it,  together  with  all  the 
varieties  of  mode  and  figure,  so  called,  in  a 
single,  simple  formula  of  the  exact  logic. 
This  formula,  (ax—o)  (bx=o]  (a6±o)=o,  is  of 
course  meaningless  to  one  who  has  not  studied 
the  symbolic  logic,  but  even  children  have 
been  shown  how  completely  and  triumphantly 
it  solves  the  one  great  problem  of  the  old 
logic. 

How  has  this  triumph  of  the  new  logic  been 
brought  about?  Here  is  an  enumeration  of 
some  of  the  circumstances  that  have  led  to 
this  result:  Logicians  withdrew  their  atten- 
tion from  language,  from  its  sentences  and 
words;  they  ceased  to  let  themselves  remain 
involved  in  all  the  complexities  of  psychical 
processes;  they  saw  amid  the  mass  of  material 
that  embarrassed  the  old  logicians  a  definite 
structure  which  only  required  to  be  freed  from 
the  foreign  conceptions  obscuring  its  propor- 


94  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

tions  to  be  recognized  as  the  nucleus  and  germ 
of  logic,  if  not  logic  itself;  they  had  seen  num- 
bers and  their  relations,  lines  and  their  group- 
ings represented  by  symbols  in  such  a  way 
that  the  symbols  took  the  place  of  the  num- 
bers and  lines  in  thought  and  bore  the  mind 
along  to  results  that  without  the  symbols  it 
never  would  have  attained;  they  had  seen  the 
vast  sciences  of  botany,  zoology,  astronomy, 
geology  bud  and  blossom,  grow  and  fruit, 
unassisted  by  any  of  the  artifices  of  the  old 
logic,  and  all  these  reflections  have  set  them 
to  distill  the  soul  of  usefulness  out  of  things 
idle.  From  the  lumber-room  and  dust-heap 
where  the  out-worn  philosophies  have  been 
flung  by  the  pride  of  science  there  has  been 
rescued  this  fair  garment  that  science  herself 
may  wear  unto  her  latest  day  with  profit  and 
honor. 

I  want  to  show  you  what  the  exact  logic 
proposed  to  do  and  has  done.  I  had  said  that 
the  efforts  of  the  old  logic  culminated  in  the 
solution  of  the  problem  of  three  classes,  and 
that  the  new  logic  had  taken  that  solution  and 
all  its  numerous  rules  and  had  reduced  them 
to  a  single  formula.  From  this  achievement 
it  advances  to  fresh  conquests.  It  attacks  the 
problem  of  an  unlimited  number  of  classes. 
It  says,  give  me  any  combination  of  the  five 
fundamental  relations  among  any  number  of 


LOGIC  95 

classes,  and  I  will  tell  you  the  whole  of  the 
class-relations  that  the  former  imply.  It  goes 
even  further  than  this  and  brings  into  its  pur- 
view many  relations  which  the  school  logic 
had  overlooked.  We  must  admit  that  it  does 
not  get  outside  of  classes  and  that  it  does  not 
deal  with  all  the  relations  of  classes,  but  only 
with  the  inclusion,  the  exclusion  and  the  over- 
lapping of  classes;  but  its  scope  is  again 
widened  by  the  fact  that  many  relations  are 
so  associated  with  class-relations  that  the  con- 
sideration of  the  one  may  be  substituted  for 
that  of  the  other,  and  the  conclusion  when 
obtained  can  be  translated  out  of  the  class- 
relations  to  which  the  calculation  has  led  us 
back  into  the  other  relations  desired.  A  sim- 
ple illustration  will  make  this  plain.  We  say 
oranges  are  yellow;  and  the  oranges  are  the 
only  class  we  have  before  our  mind.  We 
seem  to  see  the  yellow  oranges  as  we  have 
actually  seen  them  many  times.  Where  then 
is  the  other  class  to  come  from?  We  form  the 
class  of  yellow  things  which  we  were  not 
thinking  of  before  perhaps,  and  say  oranges 
are  yellow  things;  thus  substituting  for  the 
relation  between  thing  and  attribute  the  rela- 
tion between  two  classes.  Even  such  a  state- 
ment as  "That  story  of  yours  about  your  once 
meeting  the  sea-serpent  always  sets  me  off 
yawning,"  can  be  brought  under  the  class-rela- 


96  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

tion  point  of  view.  The  argument  of  the  old 
logicians  was:  Everything  can  be  expressed 
in  sentences.  Any  sentence  can  be  reduced 
to  propositions.  All  that  is  implied  in  a  prop- 
osition or  combination  of  propositions  can  be 
determined  by  the  use  of  syllogisms.  Now  no 
one  of  these  assertions  is  true.  It  is  not  true 
that  everything  can  be  expressed  in  words. 
It  is  not  true  that  every  sentence  can  be 
reduced  to  propositions.  It  is  not  true  that 
all  the  implications  even  of  a  proposition  can 
be  elicited  by  any  logic  or  indeed  by  any 
method  whatsoever:  and  all  that  the  syllo- 
gistic ascertained  in  its  laborious  fashion  was 
some,  not  all,  of  the  merely  class-relations 
involved.  How  then  did  it  come  to  pass  that 
logic  was  hailed  as  the  science  of  sciences,  the 
queen  of  the  sciences?  that  it  was  regarded  as 
the  foundation  of  all  knowledge?  that  thou- 
sands of  eager,  earnest  students  flocked  to 
hear  the  doctrines  of  the  great  masters  of  the 
art  in  the  Middle  Ages?  that  Europe  echoed 
with  the  names  of  Peter  Lombard,  Bernard 
of  Clairvaux,  Hugo  St.  Victor,  William  of 
Couches,  Adelard  of  Bath,  Joscelyn  of  Sois- 
sons,  Abelard  and  the  thousand  other  names 
of  men  who  were  striving  to  lead  themselves 
and  their  fellows  out  of  ignorance  and  error? 
How  could  it  be  otherwise  when  all  knowledge 
and  especially  the  highest  knowledge  was 


LOGIC  97 

believed  to  be  derivable  solely  from  groups  of 
words  which  had  been  handed  down  from  the 
past.  It  is  not  strange  that  men  should  have 
sought  some  science  of  this  description,  should 
imagine  that  it  was  attainable  and  even  fancy 
that  it  had  been  attained.  It  was  by  no  means 
what  they  had  supposed  it  to  be,  and  the 
moderns  have  decried  its  claims  without 
taking  the  trouble  to  understand  the  reasons 
for  rejecting  them.  But  it  has  accomplished 
a  wonderful  work  in  the  world.  I  speak  not 
of  the  controversies  it  has  aroused  and  pro- 
voked to  solutions;  I  speak  rather  of  its  great 
achievement  in  taking  Romans,  Goths  and 
Britons,  of  the  type  of  Dr.  Johnson's  High- 
lander, and  making  them  recognize  the  neces- 
sity of  being  interrogated  and  of  interrogating 
themselves  by  definite  methods.  Such  nascent 
intelligences  exist  to-day  even  in  highly  civil- 
ized countries,  and  to  these  the  knowledge  of 
the  old  logic  would  be  useful,  even  necessary, 
as  a  stepping-stone  to  higher  things;  though 
niggling  may  be  the  only  word  that  the  mod- 
ern investigator  would  apply  to  its  trivial  dis- 
tinctions and  elaborate  rules. 

Over  against  the  magnificent  claims  which 
the  old  logic  made  set  the  humble  attitude  of 
the  new  logic.  Contrast  the  mighty  interest 
among  the  devotees  of  the  ancient  doctrine 
with  the  few  and  rare  cultivators  of  the 


98  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

modern  science.  The  student  of  the  exact  or 
the  symbolic  logic,  of  the  writings  of  Peirce, 
Schroeder,  McColl,  Johnson,  Venn,  and  of  na- 
ture itself,  is  disposed  to  underrate  rather  than 
overstate  the  importance  of  his  researches. 
This  is  about  all  he  claims:  -There  are  some 
phenomena  which  are  not  themselves  classes 
or  class-relations,  but  which  are  so  connected 
with  them  that  any  discovery  in  the  one  field 
can  be  interpreted  in  terms  of  the  other. 
Moreover,  classes  and  their  relations  have 
been  made  to  coexist  with  a  set  of  symbols  in 
such  a  manner  that  reasoning  about  the  sym- 
bols takes  the  place  of  reasonings  about  the 
things  signified  by  them;  that  is,  a  process 
which  can  be  performed  in  all  cases  takes  the 
place  of  a  process  that  can  be  performed  in 
the  fewest  instances. 

Here  is  an  easy  problem  for  the  exact  logic: 
The  annelidae  (a)  are  soft-bodied  animals 
(s),  and  either  naked  (n)  or  enclosed  (/)  in  a 
tube.  Moreover,  the  order  of  the  annelidae 
consists  of  all  invertebrate  animals  (i)  which 
have  red  blood  (r). 

Here  are  six  classes.  Add  to  these  the 
classes  which  can  be  made  by  putting  together 
two  or  more  of  these.  Add  further  the  classes 
that  can  be  made  by  taking  the  individuals 
common  to  any  two,  or  to  any  more  than  two 
of  these.  Add  the  classes  that  are  left  when 


LOGIC  99 

each  of  the  preceding  is  taken  out  of  the  uni- 
verse. Add  the  classes  that  can  be  made  by 
combinations  and  selections  among  all  the 
above  classes. 

The  exact  logician  will  readily  tell  you  what 
relation  (logical  only)  exists  between  any  two 
of  these  classes,  under  the  conditions  implied 
in  the  above  statement. 

Contrast  with  this  the  work  of  the  logician 
of  the  brave  old  days  of  yore.  Though  he 
was  really  doing  little  more  than  studying  the 
relations  of  classes,  he  fancied  that  he  was 
studying  the  laws  of  thought,  the  principles  of 
existence,  the  art  of  arts,  the  science  of  sci- 
ences, and  so  on.  He  had  no  notation  and  so 
was  obliged  to  look  at  his  problems  and  to 
work  them  in  the  medium  of  ordinary  lan- 
guage with  all  its  imperfections.  He  attacked 
mainly  problems  that  involved  but  three 
classes,  and  even  these  in  a  partial  and  unsci- 
entific way,  by  means  of  a  host  of  special 
rules,  which  were  very  ingenious,  it  is  true,  and 
calculated  to  sharpen  the  wits,  but  likely  to 
divert  the  mind  from  nature  and  the  infinite 
number  there  of  classes  and  properties  to  be 
studied.  What  a  small  part  of  the  properties 
of  the  hydrocarbons  would  their  logical  prop- 
erties appear  to  any  chemist! 

Here  is  a  sample  of  a  problem  in  the  syllo- 
gistic logic,  which  I  take  from  the  logical  pro- 


IOO          SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

ductions  of  the  author  of  Alice  in  Wonderland: 
"Some  epicures  are  ungenerous.  All  my 
uncles  are  generous.  What  relation  exists 
between  epicures  and  my  uncles?" 

Notice  that  it  is  only  a  logical  relation  that 
is  asked  for.  My  uncles  may  hate  epicures; 
but  the  inclusions  and  exclusions  of  logic 
involve  no  emotions,  or  treat  them  like  xs 
and  y  s. 

The  answer  is  left  to  you  to  discover  by  the 
rules  either  of  the  old  logic  or  of  the  new,  or 
by  your  own  unaided  intelligence,  that  is,  your 
mother-wit.  One  never  hears  of  father-wit, 
unless  perhaps  it  be  this  unfortunate  business 
of  logic. 


A   Universe   of  Hegel 


A  UNIVERSE  OF  HEGEL 

Darkness  and  light,  and  the  dawn  and  twi- 
light that  span  the  chasms  between — how 
many  consciousnesses  of  these  successions  and 
these  recurrences  there  have  been  on  earth 
that  did  not  go  beyond  these  phenomena 
themselves,  or  associated  them  with  the 
revisiting  promptings  of  hunger  and  sleep 
merely,  or  it  may  be  with  sensations  of 
warmth  or  cold!  What  do  swimming,  creep- 
ing and  flying  things  know  of  a  ball  of  fire 
that  climbs  the  sky  from  that  quarter  and  goes 
down  again  to  the  horizon  over  yonder?  It 
must  have  been  a  long  time  before  men  found 
out  whether  the  yellow  globe  brought  the 
light  or  the  light  brought  the  yellow  globe. 
Early  man's  ignorance  of  what  we  think  is 
exceeded  only  by  our  ignorance  of  what  he 
thought.  Very  few  indeed  are  called  to  refeel 
the  feelings  that  preceded  speech;  and  of 
these  fewer  still  are  chosen;  and  these  even 
come  back  and  cannot  tell  the  world.  For  the 
words  and  phrases  of  civilized  man  stand  for 
grown  thoughts  and  not  for  thoughts  that  were 
ere  thought  was  born.  It  is  a  puzzle  how  men 

ever  ascertained  that  it  was  the  same  globe  of 

103 


IO4         SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

fire  that  passed  overhead  day  after  day.  They 
must  have  believed  this  for  a  long  time  before 
there  was  any  reason  that  justified  them  in 
doing  so.  You  have  no  time  to  do  what  seems 
so  much  like  mere  dreaming  and  musing;  and 
that  is,  to  remove  one  after  another  the 
acquired  beliefs  and  habits  of  your  mind,  and 
put  yourself  back  to  barbarism  or  childhood 
again,  to  savagery  or  infancy,  to  the  life  of 
fowl  and  brute.  Absurd  and  baseless  fictions 
of  the  diseased  imaginations  of  the  degenerate 
men  of  our  epoch  that  can  pretend  that  our 
thoughts  have  any  relation  with  the  vague 
thinking  of  birds  and  beasts!  Light,  twilight, 
darkness  may  be  replaced  by  the  conceptions 
of  sun-presence,  sun-absence,  sun-disappear- 
ance; but  what  connection  have  these  with  the 
vision  of  the  resting  sun  and  the  revolving 
earth?  There  cannot  be  many  whose  minds 
are  set  to  this  tune,  the  foundation  of  whose 
thought  is  the  habitual  recognition  that  "swift 
with  wondrous  swiftness  fleeting,  the  pomp  of 
earth  whirls  round  and  round;  the  glow  of 
Eden  alternating  with  shuddering  midnight's 
gloom  profound." 

But  there  is  another  cycle,  the  long  cold  and 
the  long  heat,  the  summer  and  the  winter. 
You  hardly  deem  it  worth  while  to  think  of 
them  in  these  terms  only,  and  leaving  sky, 
earth  and  sea  out  of  your  consciousness, 


A    UNIVERSE    OF    HEGEL  10$ 

remember  and  foresee  nothing  but  alterna- 
tions of  heat  and  cold.  You  see  no  use  in 
doing  this,  no  result  that  can  come  from 
breaking  up  the  whole  of  consciousness  into 
parts  or  phases,  to  study  or  describe  one  of 
these  isolated  from  the  rest.  Well,  if  you 
have  not  done  this,  if  you  will  not  or  cannot 
do  it,  you  will  never  know  what  philosophy  is, 
or  what  science  even  is,  though  you  should 
read  all  the  books  of  all  the  philosophers 
that  have  ever  written.  This  reciprocation  of 
hot  and  cold  weather  you  associate  with  the 
alternate  northings  and  southings  of  the  sun; 
but  you  do  not  connect  them  as  Herodotus 
did,  who  thought  that  the  sun  was  driven 
southward  by  the  cold  and  carried  with  it  the 
water  which  it  had  drawn  up  from  the  sea. 
But  again  there  is  substituted  for  all  this  that 
we  can  see,  and  any  child  might  see,  might 
even  discover  for  himself,  something  no  one 
ever  saw  or  ever  can  see,  a  conception  so 
different  from  the  world  of  our  sensations  and 
perceptions,  however  sublimated,  that  the  con- 
necting links,  if  connecting  links  there  are, 
between  this  conception  and  our  ordinary  per- 
ceptions are  utterly  unknown  to  thousands 
that  entertain  both — the  conception  namely, 
of  an  earth  that  no  one  can  ever  behold 
revolving  about  a  massive  globe  millions  of 
miles  away,  so  as  to  bring  this  globe,  this  new 


IO6         SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

sun  which  we  have  substituted  for  our  old  sun, 
in  alternate  half-years  now  over  the  northern 
and  now  over  the  southern  hemisphere. 
Astronomers  and  teachers  of  astronomy  are 
not  always  aware  that  there  is  any  difficulty, 
not  always  sure  where  the  difficulty  is.  Let 
me  put  the  question  in  this  way:  The  half- 
million-miles-diametered,  ninety-million-miles- 
distant  globe  of  the  astronomer's  conception— 
the  little  red  and  yellow  ball  that  dazzles  the 
eyes  of  us  all — what  has  the  former  of  these  to 
do  with  the  latter?  From  the  latter  and  vari- 
ous other  indications,  the  former  has  been 
inferred.  It  has  been  built  up  in  the  mind  of 
one  man  after  another,  sometimes  in  one  way, 
sometimes  in  another  way — sometimes  by  a 
process  which  discloses  that  the  new  is  con- 
natural with  the  old,  sometimes  by  a  process 
which  makes  the  believer  in  the  astronomer's 
sun  fancy  that  it  is  more  real  than  the  percep- 
tion from  which  it  was  derived.  But  the  per- 
ceived sun,  when  actually  perceived  and  not 
merely  beheld  in  imagination,  in  memory,  in 
foresight,  in  dreams,  in  hallucinations — even 
this  perception  itself  is  an  inference,  or  is  in- 
ference-like; has  grown  up  in  our  minds  by 
inference-processes  in  a  manner  which  "a  few 
discern,  and  the  rest,  they  may  live  and  learn." 
The  transition  from  day  to  night  or  from 
summer  to  winter  takes  place  during  our  life- 


A   UNIVERSE    OF    HEGEL  107 

time,  seems  in  consequence  to  be  more  within 
the  range  of  the  individual's  experience,  and 
not  so  indisputably  inference  as  the  next 
grand  alternation  to  which  I  shall  ask  your 
attention.  Our  race  had  forgotten  all  about 
it;  forgotten  that  it  had  ever  had  any  such 
experience.  Surely  no  one  individual  of  that 
remote  time  ever  did  have  the  world-experi- 
ence which  we  remember  now;  his  world  was 
bounded  by  the  hills  that  shut  in  his  valley. 
We  do  not  say  that  we  remember  when  the 
northern  hemisphere  was  covered  with  ice 
thousands  of  feet  thick,  and  the  southern  pole 
was  tropically  hot;  and  back  farther  still,  when 
all  this  was  completely  reversed,  and  the 
north  pole  was  a  garden  and  the  southern 
hemisphere  one  mass  of  ice;  and  still  farther 
back  to  the  time  when  the  conditions  were  as 
they  are  now.  We  had  long  forgotten  these 
occurrences  as  well  as  the  vast  duration  of  the 
transition  from  one  of  these  states  to  another. 
But  now  one  thing  after  another  has  recalled 
(observe  the  word),  recalled  them  all  to  our 
minds.  Surely  that  cannot  be  recalled  which 
was  never  experienced;  and  surely  too  the 
sneaking,  cowering  cave-dweller  that  was 
frozen  up  in  his  dismal  lair  never  experienced 
this.  Where  was  the  mind  then  that  recol- 
lects these  things  to-day? — that  remembers 
how  for  thousands  of  years  the  earth's  orbit 


IO8  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

was  becoming  more  and  more  elongated,  how 
the  north  pole  happened  to  be  turned  away 
from  the  sun  just  when  the  earth  was  farthest 
from  the  sun,  how  the  winter  in  the  northern 
hemisphere  exceeded  the  summer  by  some 
thirty  days  for  year  after  year,  till  those  not 
gifted  with  astronomical  minds  at  that  time 
must  have  thought  that  it  always  was  thus  and 
thus  it  always  would  be?  You  and  I  did  not 
live  then  to  console  that  ignorant  folk  by  tell- 
ing them  that  matters  would  speedily  mend, 
that  in  20,000  years  or  so  all  would  be 
reversed. 

This  recurrence  of  glacial  epochs,  this  suc- 
cession of  ice-ages  and  steam-ages,  is  a 
grander  cycle  than  that  of  summer  and  winter, 
and  dwarfs  the  sequence  of  day  and  night,  but 
it  shrinks  into  insignificance  in  comparison 
with  those  stupendous  transformations  of  the 
Universe  when  there  was  no  human  life. 
Whence  did  we  get  this  conception?  the  con- 
ception, that  is,  of  a  mass  immensely  larger 
than  the  astronomer's  sun,  including  indeed 
in  itself  sun,  planets  and  satellites,  all  sublimed 
to  a  tenuous  vapor,  formless,  vast,  but  sure 
through  stage  after  stage  to  eventuate  in  the 
solar  system  of  our  astronomers,  and  equally 
sure  to  resume  its  ancient  solitary  reign 
through  the  collapse  of  that  very  solar  system 
itself? 


A    UNIVERSE    OF    HEGEL 

We  have  passed  long  since  the  bounds  of 
scientific  knowledge,  of  anything  that  merits 
the  name  of  knowledge  indeed,  as  the  "epi- 
stemologist"  understands  knowledge;  and  yet 
all  this  infinite  dilation  and  contraction  of 
worlds  on  worlds  through  countless  aeons 
humbles  itself  before  the  religious  conscious- 
ness, which,  amid  all  these,  before  all  these, 
after  all  these,  pervading,  following,  preceding 
all  these  changes,  "faiths"  the  somewhat,  the 
unnamed  and  unnamable,  the  unthought  and 
unthinkable,  the  unknown  and  unknowable— 
this  somewhat  which  profane  men  have  sought 
to  comprehend  by  likening  it  to  love,  imagina- 
tion, reason,  will,  unconsciousness,  nothing, 
and  many  things  else;  which  foolish  men 
have  named  and  at  the  same  time  declared 
that  the  name  did  not  mean  what  one  could 
suppose  it  to  mean;  this  somewhat  which  holy 
men  have  deemed  like  the  god  of  the  Hindu 
or  Arabic  consciousness;  this  somewhat  on 
which,  as  on  a  majestic  scroll,  men  have  pro- 
jected religions,  philosophies,  sciences,  fancies 
innumerable,  Copernican  and  Newtonian 
dreams,  even  now  fading  away;  this  somewhat 
would  seem  to  be  that  whereof  no  account  can 
be  given  after  all,  no  story  told.  We  are  still 
asking  questions  about  it,  even  while  hesita- 
ting to  apply  the  noun  "it"  to  what  is  so  unlike 
any  other  it  that  we  know.  Does  it  have  only 


IIO  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

a  subjective  existence?  that  is,  exist  only  in 
some  minds?  Or  does  it  have  a  metaphysical 
existence, — that  is,  exist  independently  of  any 
mind?  Is  it,  even  when  naught  else  is?  And 
how  are  other  things  related  to  it? 

These  are  certainly  questions  that  men  may 
entertain,  or  dismiss  as  insoluble  or  useless  or 
fantastic.  Day  and  night  may  roll  their 
courses;  summer  and  winter  burst  and  close; 
ice-ages  interchange  with  warmth-ages; 
vapors  condense  into  worlds,  and  worlds  be 
dissipated  to  vapor;  god  exist  before,  amid, 
through,  after  all,  though  space  and  time 
themselves  lack  the  infinity  or  eternity  that  we 
ascribe  to  them; — or  again  in  terms  of  con- 
sciousness, sensations  may  merge  into  percep- 
tions; perceptions  be  replaced  by  conceptions, 
the  frame-work  of  common  knowledge;  science 
outgrow  common  knowledge;  religion  absorb 
all  these  into  itself — but  will  you  deny  that 
even  this  may  be  transcended;  that  here  and 
there  (I  really  mean  not  here  nor  there,  but  in 
some  favored  region  and  era)  there  may  arise 
the  philosophical  consciousness  that  shall 
rend  the  bonds  of  the  senses  and  the  under- 
standing, leap  the  barriers  of  reason  and 
faith,  and  attain  the  universe  and  god,  all 
existences  and  all  possibilities  of  existence? 

You  refuse  credence  to  such  claims?  And 
yet  you,  geologist  or  astronomer,  claim  to 


A    UNIVERSE    OF     HEGEL  III 

know  what  happened  millions  of  leagues  away 
and  millions  of  winters  ago.  You,  the  political 
economist,  claim  to  know  what  cannot  be 
expressed  in  ordinary  language,  not  indeed  in 
language  at  all  except  the  condensed  and 
symbolic  language  of  the  generalized  algebra. 
You  do  not  expect  that  the  possessor  of  this 
philosophical  consciousness  can  transport  you 
at  once  to  the  height  that  he  has  attained  by 
the  toil  of  years.  Royal  roads  may  be  built 
to  the  summits  of  lofty  mountains.  There 
are  even  royal  roads  to  certain  geometrical 
truths  that  the  tutors  of  princes  have  been 
constrained  to  discover.  But  he  must  not 
commence  king  who  attends  this  insight. 
Vigils  and  fasts,  penances  and  prayers  must 
lift  you  to  where 

"About  him  all  the  sanctities  of  heaven 
Stood  thick  as  stars,  and  from  his  sight  received 
Beatitudes  past  utterance." 

The  vision  and  the  faculty  divine  are  prom- 
ised only  to  those  who  are  born  to  them;  you 
must  not  only  have  been  born  to  this  philoso- 
phy, but  you  must  have  familiarized  yourself 
with  the  languages,  some  half  dozen,  in  which 
the  seekers  after  these  truths  have  involved 
their  half-discovered  mysteries;  you  must 
have  followed  with  eye  and  ear  and  mind  the 
speculations  of  the  ages;  you  must  have  espe- 


112  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

cially  considered  what  took  place  in  Germany 
some  hundred  years  ago,  when  Kant's  irre- 
fragable demonstration  of  the  impossibility  of 
metaphysics  was  followed  by  the  assertion  of 
Fichte  that  he  willed  the  actuality  of  its 
object;  of  Schelling  that  he  beheld  that  actu- 
ality; of  Hegel  that  he  was  that  actuality  and 
was  possessed  of  the  demonstration  of  that 
which  in  others  had  been  mere  volitions  and 
contemplations. 

Here  was  nothing  that  claimed  to  be  so 
plain  that  a  wayfaring  man  need  not  err 
therein.  Here  was  nothing  that  was  con- 
cealed from  the  wise  and  prudent  and  revealed 
to  babes.  Here  was  nothing  that  some  semi- 
god,  not  to  be  educated  by  rules  and  tutors, 
some  musical,  tremulous,  impressional  being, 
shall  have  for  the  asking  and  gain  with  a 
glance.  Here  is  something  that  you  can  get, 
if  you  get  at  all,  only  as  you  get  geometry  or 
chemistry  or  art;  and  we  know  how  very  few 
get  these.  Here  is  something  which  does  not 
content  itself  with  paeans  in  praise  of  the 
knowledge  it  has  won,  while  it  refrains  from 
stating  a  single  proposition  of  its  profound, 
but  occult  lore.  Here  is  something  which  is 
spread  out  in  thousands  of  statements,  stretch- 
ing through  a  dozen  volumes;  axioms,  theo- 
rems, chains  of  reasoning — all  the  diversity 
and  detail  that  would  characterize  a  treatise 


A    UNIVERSE    OF    HEGEL  113 

on  electricity.  You  do  not  suppose  that  ohms 
and  farads  stand  for  nothing  because  you  do 
not  know  what  they  stand  for.  You  may 
detect  many  false  statements,  many  false  con- 
ceptions of  things  that  had  long  been  known 
or  that  have  been  learned  since.  One  may 
have  discovered  how  to  make  a  correct  chart 
without  being  able  to  guarantee  that  the 
chart  he  has  made  is  correct.  You  may  wish 
for  examples  or  illustrations  of  these  asser- 
tions about  being,  existence,  reality  and 
appearance;  but  you  must  learn  that  the 
abstract  can  get  along  without  the  concrete  as 
well  as,  perhaps  better  than,  the  concrete  can 
do  without  the  abstract.  You  may  not  know 
German;  and  if  you  do,  you  may  get  little 
help  from  that.  If  you  have  read  other  phi- 
losophies you  cannot  be  certain  that  you  will 
understand  these  of  Hegel,  and  what  if  you 
should  get  to  know  his  meaning?  Why,  it 
would  change  you,  your  entire  conception  of 
the  scheme  of  things,  your  whole  theory  of 
conduct,  if  not  the  actual  course  of  your  own 
conduct,  your  relation  to  life  and  art,  your 
notion  of  the  things  around  you.  There  are 
no  two  greater  puzzles  to  each  other  than  the 
philosophical  and  the  non-philosophical  head. 
As  is  likely,  you  do  not  wish  your  view  of 
things  to  be  changed.  You  need  fear  no  ill 
results.  The  change  must  be  very  slow,  and 


114  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

perhaps  may  never  take  place  in  your  case, 
wish  it  as  much  as  you  may. 

But  let  us  draw  nearer  to  the  world  accord- 
ing to  Hegel.  The  term  negation  is  used  in 
connection  with  language.  Are  you  familiar 
with  it  as  the  name  for  a  process  of  thought? 
Few  have  thought  of  it  as  a  name  for  a  proc- 
ess in  things;  still  less  as  the  name  of  a  meta- 
physical process.  Now  this  process  is  based 
on  what  there  is  already  in  store  at  the  time 
of  its  occurrence;  there  is  no  need  for  its 
performance  to  gather  materials  from  any 
extraneous  source.  But,  it  is  maintained, 
every  position  necessarily  implies  its  negation, 
and  now  emerges  this  negation,  not  merely  as 
a  logical  consequence,  not  only  as  a  physical 
effect,  not  solely  as  a  motived  act,  though  it 
may  be  all  or  each  of  these;  but  primarily  as 
a  metaphysical  necessity,  an  inevitable  step  in 
the  world  process,  whether  in  the  stellar  uni- 
verse or  in  the  decaying  vegetable.  Note 
again  that,  if  you  call  what  exists  at  any  given 
moment  one  thing,  upon  the  emergence  of  its 
negation,  there  are  two  things;  now  any  two 
things  have  something  in  common,  through 
which  they  are  united  in  a  higher  unity.  This 
new  unit  necessarily  implies,  that  is,  creates 
or  generates  its  negation  and  the  new  unit 
and  its  negation  are  in  their  turn  taken  up  into 
a  higher  unity.  And  so  the  process  goes  on 


A    UNIVERSE    OF    HEGEL  11$ 

everywhere  and  forever.  It  may  be  possible 
to  give  a  diagram  or  rough  scheme  of  this 
process;  in  which  scheme,  however,  the  mere 
blank  form  is  alone  retained,  and  not  the  con- 
tents of  the  real  processes. 

This  process  is  thesis,  antithesis,  synthesis. 
One  must  take  care  not  to  be  misled  by  the 
etymological  meanings  of  the  words,  or  by 
their  use  in  any  other  connection.  (As  in- 
stances: Parallel  lines  exist;  these  imply  non- 
parallel  lines.  What  can  be  more  unlike  than 
these;  and  yet  they  are  subsumed  or  taken  up 
in  the  higher  unity  of  intersecting  lines, 
according  as  these  intersect  at  a  finite  or  an 
infinite  distance.  You  say  that  this  line  inter- 
sects the  circle  and  that  that  line  does  not 
intersect  the  circle;  the  geometer  unites  them 
under  one  conception  and  says  that  the  for- 
mer intersects  the  circle  in  two  real,  the  latter 
in  two  ideal,  points.  In  politics,  a  states- 
rights  party  implies  an  anti-states-rights  party; 
these  coalesce  in  a  higher  whole,  which 
evokes  opposition  by  necessity,  to  eventuate 
in  a  deeper  agreement,  that  that  which  Hegel 
spake  unto  our  fathers  may  be  fulfilled.) 

Now  if  you  would  trace  out  the  perpetual 
recurrence  of  this  process  in  all  the  details  of 
nature  and  life  and  science  and  art,  you  would 
only  be  consciously  thinking  the  unconscious 
thoughts  of  your  protaeonic  self,  you  would  be 


Il6         SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

in  your  own  person  further  exemplifying  the 
process  that  has  been  going  on  through  all 
time  and  space.  But  it  is  only  in  its  grander 
outlines,  in  its  relation  to  the  beginnings  of 
time  and  space,  of  nature  and  spirit  that  the 
formula  of  thesis,  antithesis,  synthesis  has 
been  much  talked  of  in  recent  times. 

Let  us  ascend.  We  are  (or  rather,  we  are 
not)  before  matter  and  mind,  where  Pure 
Being,  Being  divested  of  all  its  attributes, 
posits  or  puts  itself.  Long  before,  aeons  before 
the  indefinite,  incoherent,  homogeneous  Spen- 
cerium  started  on  its  evolutionary  career, 
Hegel's  Sein  was  beginning  that  process  of 
self-unfolding  which  was  to  result  in  Wesen 
(Essence)  and  in  its  course  originate  all  those 
forms  or  moulds  or  categories  or  receptacles 
of  things  and  things  themselves  and  the 
sensations  which  poor  Kant  had  simply  said 
are  given  without  indicating  when  or  where 
or  by  whom,  and  quality  and  finiteness  and 
unity  and  multiplicity  and  quantity  and  meas- 
ure and  the  rest, of  which  it  was  to  make  use 
in  thinking,  that  is,  in  creating  the  world. 
Over  against  itself,  when  it  had  enucleated, 
explicated,  disentangled  these  forms  which 
implied  their  own  applicability,  there  suc- 
ceeded to  the  thesis  the  antithesis;  to  the 
Absolute  Self  by  a  necessity  which  you  may 
call  at  once  metaphysical,  physical,  logical, 


A    UNIVERSE    OF    HEGEL 

moral,  aesthetic,  arose  the  not  self,  nature. 
Where  now  is  the  synthesis?  Before  answer- 
ing this  question,  let  us  look  a  little  more 
closely  at  the  thesis  and  antithesis.  These 
two  processes,  which  are  manifested  or 
exemplified  in  every  chemical  combination, 
in  the  budding  of  plants,  in  the  growth  of 
animals,  in  the  destinies  of  nations,  in  the 
development  of  worlds,  are  the  same  proc- 
esses which  were  involved  in  the  emergence 
of  nature  as  the  negation  of  the  Absolute 
Reason. 

No  goading  of  sense  to  activity,  no  opiate 
intensification  of  the  imagination,  no  plodding 
industry  of  the  understanding,  will  bring  the 
philosophical  consciousness.  It  does  not  have 
its  roots  in  English  insular  prejudice  that  the 
forms,  categories,  ideas,  and  so  forth,  that  is, 
the  great  conceptions  under  which  we  classify 
things,  had  their  ultimate  origin  in  experience. 
No  German  Kantian  notion  that  these  great 
principles  are  native  to  the  individual  mind 
merely,  as  the  conditions  of  the  possibility  of 
its  knowledge,  will  bring  the  philosophical 
consciousness.  You  must  have  passed  through 
all  these,  however,  through  all  phases,  too,  of 
materialism,  idealism,  realism,  nihilism,  and 
whatever  else  there  may  be  until  these 
myriads  of  influence  and  the  contradictions 
they  involve  shall  compel  you  to  the  philo- 


I  1 8  SWAIN    SCHOOL     LECTURES 

sophical  consciousness.  In  this  you  behold  the 
truth  of  this  relation  of  thesis  and  antithesis 
between  Spirit  and  Nature,  but  the  two 
opposites  come  together  and  the  contradiction 
is  annulled  in  the  higher  unity  of  conscious- 
ness. 


Seven   Processes  of   Language 


SEVEN  PROCESSES   OF  LANGUAGE 

Where  is  the  English  language?  This 
question  seems  to  imply  a  misuse  of  the  word 
"where,"  unless  indeed  one  means  "In  what 
localities  on  earth  speakers  of  English  are 
found?"  But  this  is  not  my  meaning.  Why 
not  then  ask  the  question  in  such  a  way  as  to 
convey  your  meaning?  Because  I  cannot. 
And  yet,  if  I  only  knew  how!  Perhaps,  after 
hearing  the  seven  different  answers  that  I 
give  to  this  question,  you  may  discern  more 
clearly  than  at  present  that  we  lack  an 
interrogative  of  a  signification  more  general 
than  that  of  "where." 

Where,  then,  is  the  English  language?  On 
innumerable  bits  of  paper,  parchment,  papy- 
rus, wood,  stone,  metal,  and  other  material, 
in  nearly  every  land  under  the  sun.  There  it 
exists  to-day  as  some  of  it  has  been  existing 
at  any  moment  in  these  last  800  years.  Yes, 
much  of  it  has  been  existing  in  this  way  for 
more  than  800  years,  shading  off  in  place  and 
time  into  other  languages  without  number; 
so  that  it  is  hard  to  say  where  the  English 
language  ends,  and  where  something  else 


122  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

begins — some  language  that  is  not  English. 
It  may  seem  singular  to  you  that  our  copious 
English  has  no  word  to  stand  for  this  mani- 
festation of  itself.  This  is  the  seen  language, 
the  visible  language,  the  language  that  is  or 
may  be  read.  I  might  call  it  the  "lect."  I 
want  a  term  that  shall  draw  your  attention 
away  from  the  mode  in  which  this  "lect"  is 
produced,  and  make  prominent  the  fact  only 
that  we  use  our  eyes  to  recognize  it  with;  and 
that  is  something  which  fails  to  be  expressed 
by  the  phrases,  written  language,  printed,  en- 
graved or  type-written  language.  There  it  is, 
reposing  in  thousands  of  libraries,  or  moving 
from  place  to  place  over  the  great  land  and 
ocean  highways  of  the  world — an  incessant 
stream  which  swells  from  year  to  year,  its 
eddies  sprinkling  your  desk  with  letters  every 
morning.  Picture  to  yourself  this  universe 
of  script  and  print  and  inscription.  Does  it 
not  seem  as  if  man  had  added  a  new  realm  to 
nature?  Everyone  that  has  eyes  can  see  this 
language,  and  few  suspect  their  liability  to 
confound  it  with  anything  else.  Where  it  is 
all  can  learn,  but  what  it  is,  its  origin,  its 
changes,  its  relation  to  other  phenomena  both 
in  and  out  of  language,  are  matters  that  few 
may  understand.  Here  a  character  that 
stands  for  a  single  sound,  and  again  for  a 
group  of  sounds,  and  here  one  that  represents 


SEVEN  PROCESSES  OF  LANGUAGE      123 

a  whole  word  or  sentence;  and  another  that 
does  not  stand  for  a  sound  at  all,  but  for  some 
idea;  here  again  characters  that  have  ceased 
to  stand  for  anything,  and  there  others  that 
never  did  stand  for  anything.  This  English 
has  a  story  of  its  own;  and  most  stubbornly 
has  it  resisted  the  most  persistent  efforts  to 
mould  it  into  new  forms  which  would  establish 
a  one-to-one  correspondence  of  itself  to  some 
other  series.  But  let  me  pass  to  one  of  these 
other  series,  leaving  this  first  and  simplest 
answer  to  my  question  "Where  is  the  English 
Language?"  that  it  is  found  in  sight-English. 
But  here  is  another  answer.  The  English 
language  exists  at  this  instant  in  multitudinous 
movements  of  the  particles  of  the  air — vibra- 
tions and  oscillations,  as  we  call  them;  exists 
for  a  moment,  and  disappears  as  rapidly  as  it 
is  called  into  being;  exists  in  this  way  over  a 
greater  part  of  the  earth's  surface  than  any 
other  language.  In  this  state  of  existence,  it 
is  not  discernible  by  any  one  of  our  senses, 
but  only  inferable  from  certain  indications 
that  our  senses  furnish.  But  we  can  picture 
to  ourselves  the  unsensible,  that  is,  the  invis- 
ible, the  inaudible,  the  intangible,  in  imagina- 
tion; and  very  curious,  hardly  recognizable, 
not  even  surmised  to  exist  by  many,  is  this 
language  of  ours  which  floats  in  the  air 
around  us. 


124  SWAIN   SCHOOL   LECTURES 

"Or  like  the  snow  falls  in  the  river, 
A  moment  white — then  melts  for  ever; 
Or  like  the  borealis  race, 
That  flit  ere  you  can  point  their  place; 
Or  like  the  rainbow's  lovely  form 
Evanishing  amid  the  storm." 

Have  you  ever  tried  to  represent  to  your- 
self the  English  language  as  it  must  exist 
between  you  and  me,  in  the  air  there,  if  it  is 
ever  to  get  from  you  to  me,  or  from  me  to 
you?  If  you  have  ever  made  the  effort  to 
imagine  the  space  between  us  while  we  are 
talking  to  each  other,  there  can  be  no  limit  to 
your  admiration  for  the  genius  of  Helmholtz, 
that  great  philosopher  of  our  century,  eminent 
as  mathematician,  as  physicist,  and  as  physi- 
ologist, the  Newton  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
who  has  done  in  our  time  for  sound  what  that 
great  investigator  did  in  the  seventeenth 
century  for  light.  No  poet  or  priest  can 
reveal  these  mysteries  to  us.  We  cannot 
expect  him  to  concentrate  his  gaze  on  a 
cubic  yard  of  air,  and  to  experiment,  reason 
and  calculate,  till  he  can,  not  merely  assert, 
but  prove  his  assertion,  that  thus  it  is  in  that 
cube  of  air,  and  not  otherwise.  Poet  and  seer 
may  desire  to  "know  what  holds  the  earth 
together  in  its  inmost  sphere;  see  whence 
production  has  its  birth,  see  all  the  germs  of 
life  appear;"  but  his  emotions  unfit  him  for 


SEVEN  PROCESSES  OF  LANGUAGE      125 

pursuing  the  only  course  that  will  lead  to  a 
result  independent  of  his  individual  impres- 
sions. On  the  other  hand,  a  scientist,  a 
Helmholtz,  takes  his  stand  nor  swerves  till  he 
triumphs  over  the  secret  hid  in  that  volume 
of  air;  and  tells  the  story  of  how  he  did  it 
all  in  that  huge  book  of  his,  so  that  anyone 
of  our,  or  of  any  after,  time  can,  if  he  will, 
hear  the  atmosphere's  story  told,  and  know 
that  not  only  did  such  things  take  place  once, 
but  that  they  take  place  now  whenever  you 
supply  the  specified  conditions.  Just  consider 
a  moment.  It  has  long  been  known  that  the 
duration  of  any  sound  I  utter  has  for  its 
counterpart,  or  correlative,  a  continuation  of 
air-waves,  one  following  the  other;  that  the 
pitch  of  any  sound  I  utter  has  for  its  counter- 
part the  rapidity  with  which  the  wave  passes 
a  certain  point,  or  the  number  of  wave-crests 
that  pass  that  point  in  a  second;  that  the 
loudness  of  any  sound  I  utter  is  represented 
out  there  in  the  air  by  the  degree  of  condensa- 
tion of  the  wave.  Sounds  may  differ  in  pitch, 
in  loudness,  in  duration;  but  sounds  differ 
from  one  another  in  so  many  other  particulars. 
All  this  natura  sonans,  this  sonant  nature,  this 
world  of  sounds,  this  inexhaustible  quarry  for 
singer  and  musician  and  poet — does  it  have  a 
corresponding  natura  vibrans,  a  vibrant  nature, 
a  world  of  vibrations  in  the  air  that  surrounds 


126  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

us?  We  surely  distinguish  ball  from  kin,  even 
when  both  sounds,  having  the  same  dura- 
tion, the  same  pitch,  the  same  intensity,  go 
along  with  air-waves  that  have  the  same 
duration,  the  same  rapidity,  the  same  degree 
of  condensation.  What  is  there  then  in  the 
air  that  answers  to  this  difference  between 
ball  and  kin?  This  is  the  question  which 
Helmholtz  asked  himself,  and  to  which  he 
found  an  answer.  An  illustration  drawn  from 
another  source  may  make  the  answer  plainer, 
not  indeed  in  its  detail  and  exactitude;  will 
not  tell  you  just  what  there  is  in-air-English 
that  matches  ball  and  kin,  but  will  tell  you 
what  is  the  character  of  that  something.  This 
is  the  illustration:  Look  out  on  the  ocean; 
you  see  a  line  of  billows,  from  crest  to  crest 
more  than  a  vessel's  length.  Over  the  surface 
of  these  swelling  billows  climb  waves.  Flitting 
over  the  waves,  as  these  sweep  over  the 
billows,  are  troops  of  wavelets;  and  there  you 
see  a  swirl  of  eddies,  skurrying  over  and  amid 
these  little  waves,  and  whifts  of  ripples  dance 
over  the  whole  and  run  into  the  dizziest  whirl 
of  foam.  Now  something  like  this  is  going  on 
in  the  air;  and  it  is  these  eddies  and  ripples 
among  the  air-waves,  the  aerial  vibrations,  in 
other  words,  that  we  find  the  counterpart  of 
that  which  makes  the  sonorous  difference 
between  ball  and  kin.  Homer  speaks  of  epea 


SEVEN  PROCESSES  OF  LANGUAGE      I2/ 

pterocnta,  winged  words;  and  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  this  epithet  was  then  more  scientific 
than  poetic.  How  could  he  account  for  the  fact 
that  the  word  went  from  "me"  to  "you"  more 
satisfactorily  to  himself  than  by  supposing  that 
it  had  invisible  wings  to  bear  it  away?  But 
we  know  that  it  is  not  the  word  that  goes,  but 
simply  curiously  intricate  pulsations  of  the 
air.  But  it  is  not  in  the  air  alone  that  this 
vibrationary  English  exists.  Walls,  chairs, 
tables,  windows,  wires — but  why  enumerate? — 
your  fire-screen  there  comports  itself  very 
differently  in  the  presence  of  a  Frenchman, 
let  me  assure  you,  from  its  behavior  when  an 
Englishman  calls.  In  the  air  between  two 
persons  who  are  talking  together  in  a  room; 
in  the  chord  by  which  they  communicate  when 
they  use  that  toy  called  a  lover's  telegraph;  in 
the  wire  that  stretches  miles  in  length  from 
one  telephone  to  another,  exists  this  vibration- 
English.  It  is  essentially  the  same  in  all. 
The  phonograph  simply  sets  up  the  same 
motions  in  the  air  that  were  originally  pro- 
duced by  the  mouth  that  talked  into  it.  And 
in  passing,  let  me  observe  that  English  exists 
in  one  of  its  forms  on  the  cylinder  of  the 
phonograph,  though  I  had  not  included  this 
in  my  enumeration  of  the  places  or  states  in 
which  the  English  language  is  found. 

"The  mouth  that  talked  into  it,"  I  said;  and 


128          SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

this  brings  me  to  a  third  whereabouts  of 
English.  Let  me  call  it  physiological  English 
for  the  nonce,  though  mouth-English  is  a 
more  significant  term.  Suppose  that  while  an 
Englishman  is  speaking,  it  were  possible  to 
take  instantaneous  photographs  every  few 
seconds  of  the  whole  articulatory  apparatus; 
we  should  have  a  series  of  pictures  which  would 
be  as  significant  to  one  who  had  studied  it  as 
our  written  English  is,  and  that  series  of 
motions  which  these  pictures  would  in  part 
represent,  of  palate,  tongue,  teeth,  lips,  would 
if  we  could  interpret  it,  be  as  definite  an 
expression  of  the  speaker's  meaning  as  are 
the  words  we  hear.  Why,  the  successive 
positions  of  those  organs  of  speech  which  are 
visible  suffice  alone  to  enable  those  who  have 
studied  these  indications  to  catch  the  speaker's 
meaning,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  whole 
language — every  hue  and  tinge  and  shade  of 
it — is  paralleled  by  these  series  of  positions 
of  the  vocal  organs.  The  study  of  these  facts 
forms  part  of  the  science  of  phonetics.  There 
are  diagrams  which  are  intended  to  show  the 
various  .positions  the  articulatory  apparatus 
assumes  when  pronouncing  the  sounds 
indicated  by  the  letters.  More  attention  is 
now  given  to  this  physiological  English  than 
ever  before,  with  this  result  among  others  that 
a  difference  has  been  detected  among  sounds 


SEVEN    PROCESSES    OF    LANGUAGE  129 

supposed  to  be  alike,  when  once  the  attention 
has  been  directed  to  a  difference  of  position  in 
the  organs  by  which  the  sounds  were  made; 
on  the  other  hand,  sounds  between  which  no 
difference  can  be  discerned,  have  been  shown 
to  be  producible  in  a  number  of  different  ways, 
that  is,  by  different  motions  of  the  articulating 
parts.  It  is  on  this  physiological  English  that 
the  visible  speech  of  Mr.  Alexander  Graham 
Bell  is  based.  Every  letter  of  this  alphabet 
represents,  not  as  in  ordinary  alphabets,  a 
certain  sound,  but  that  position  of  the  parts 
of  the  mouth  by  which  this  sound  is  made. 
The  startling  originality  of  this  conception 
was  well  matched  by  the  patience  and 
assiduity  which  worked  it  out  in  detail;  and 
in  his  studies  of  this  other  English,  this 
mouth-English,  which  we  all  use  without 
noticing  it,  lies  the  germ  of  the  invention  of 
his  now  more  famous  son,  Graham  Bell.  It 
was  by  dropping  those  Englishes  with  which 
we  are  all  familiar  and  taking  up  those  with 
which  we  are  not  habitually  occupied  at  all, 
that  Visible  Speech  and  the  Telephone  were 
worked  out.  Vibration-English  and  mouth- 
English,  things  that  most  Englishmen  know 
nothing  about,  have,  when  once  the  attention 
of  competent  persons  was  fixed  upon  them, 
revolutionized  the  methods  of  instructing 
deaf-mutes,  begun  to  change  all  our  proc- 


I3O          SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

esses  of  teaching  languages,  made  it  pos- 
sible for  a  traveler  to  take  down  the  speech  of 
a  barbarian  stranger  with  such  exactness  that 
his  correspondent  can  reproduce  it  with  the 
greatest  fidelity,  and  enabled  Boston  and  New 
York  to  converse  together  with  as  much  ease 
as  you  and  I  in  this  room. 

But  we  may  enlarge  our  conception  of 
mouth-English.  Since  the  whole  organism 
reacts  in  some  degree  in  response  to  the 
action  of  any  part,  it  follows  that  English  is  in 
a  peculiar  sense  embodied  in  the  children  of 
English-speaking  parents.  All  the  testimony 
of  all  the  statistics  in  the  world  would  not 
convince  me  that  an  English-born  babe  would 
not  learn  English  more  easily  than  an  infant 
of  French  parentage  placed  in  the  same 
surroundings. 

This  brings  us  to  the  English  language 
existing  as  a  nerve-process,  or  rather  as  a  two- 
fold nerve-process,  corresponding  to  the  double 
attitude  of  hearer  and  speaker;  yes,  a  four- 
fold nerve-process  when  we  take  into  account 
reader  and  writer  as  well.  No  physiologist 
doubts  that  something  different  is  going  on  in 
the  brain  when  one  writes  and  when  one 
speaks,  when  one  hears  and  when  one  reads. 
Sometimes  one  of  these  faculties  is  impaired 
without  immediately  involving  an  impairment 
of  either  of  the  others.  This  led  Techmer  to 


SEVEN  PROCESSES  OF  LANGUAGE      131 

recommend  the  separate  and  distinct  learning 
of  the  spoken  and  the  written  language. 
Associate,  that  is  to  say,  the  spoken  word 
with  the  meaning,  and  the  written  word  with 
the  meaning,  and  not,  as  is  usually  the  case  in 
schools,  associate  the  spoken  and  the  written 
word.  As  languages  are  now  learned,  aphasia, 
or  an  affection  of  the  nerves  that  makes 
talking  impossible,  involves  agraphia,  or  the 
inability  to  write  down  one's  thoughts. 
According  to  Techmer's  plan,  the  one  of  these 
would  not  be  necessarily  complicated  with  the 
other. 

But  not  in  visible  signs,  not  in  air  or  any 
vibratory  medium,  not  in  nerve  or  in  the 
reactions  of  the  organism,  not  in  the  suc- 
cessive position  of  the  articulatory  organs — 
not  in  any  of  these — can  the  language  be  said 
so  truly  to  exist  as  in  this  very  world  or 
universe  of  sounds  themselves.  Here  language 
lives  and  moves;  and  yet  all  the  names  that 
are  applied  to  this,  to  this  succession  of  sounds, 
are  taken  from  some  thing  associated  with 
this  succession,  and  have  misleading  sug- 
gestions. Instance  the  English  tongue,  the 
English  language  (lingua)',  the  English  speech 
is  somewhat  better.  The  English  talk,  if  we 
could  use  the  expression,  directs  our  atten- 
tion still  better  to  the  sound  itself,  and  with- 
draws it  more  easily  from  the  tongue,  the 


132          SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

teeth,  the  air,  the  ear,  the  letters,  the  per- 
petual accompaniments  in  nature  and  in 
thought  of  these  sounds.  It  is  a  sad  reflec- 
tion that  this,  the  spoken  language,  has  been 
crowded  out  of  men's  thoughts  by  the  written 
language.  There  can  of  course  be  no  likeness 
between  these,  only  a  correspondence.  This 
correspondence  may  have  any  degree  of 
exactness.  In  no  language,  however,  is  the 
correspondence  very  exact;  in  English  it  is 
very  inexact.  Changes  of  stress,  of  pitch,  of 
pause,  of  duration,  of  individual  utterance,  are 
not  marked  at  all.  Even  what  is  left  of  the 
sound  after  deducting  all  this,  is  either  under- 
indicated,  or  over-indicated,  or  mis-indicated; 
or,  when  indicated,  indicated  in  a  very 
unpractical  and  inelegant  manner.  Tennyson 
laments,  as  he  composes  his  verses,  that  the 
subtle  succession  of  sounds  he  has  sought  to 
seize  cannot  be  preserved,  can  hardly  be 
expressed  by  the  symbols  he  tries  to  represent 
them  by.  Luckily  the  world  clings  to  the 
bad,  and  it  is  hard  to  change  all  this.  Luckily, 
I  say,  for  how  else  can  "we  hope  that  they  will 
cling  to  the  good  when  they  get  it? 

This  half-century  has  indeed  witnessed  a 
glorious  revival,  a  veritable  renaissance,  of 
the  sounds  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages. 
Even  the  long  silent  rhythms  of  the  latter 
have  awakened  to  life.  Order,  symmetry  and 


SEVEN  PROCESSES  CF  LANGUAGE      133 

beauty  have  been  discovered  where  all  was 
confusion.  But  who  would  undertake  to 
reconstruct  our  rhythms  from  the  texts  of 
to-day  with  no  other  key  to  them  than  the 
texts  themselves?  The  English  language  has 
numerous  faults  at  its  best,  and  many  of  these 
our  schools  have  done  their  utmost  to  per- 
petuate; but,  by  and  large,  there  is  no 
language  fitted  to  cope  with  the  English  in 
the  struggle  for  existence  from  the  simple 
fact  that  the  English  represents  the  highest 
stage  of  linguistic  development,  and  all  prog- 
ress in  other  languages  is  toward  the  Eng- 
lish type.  Were  it  not  for  the  utterly  inde- 
fensible difficulties  of  our  orthography,  we 
would  have  made  even  the  thought  of  such  a 
thing  as  Volaplik  impossible.  But  my  aim  was 
an  exposition,  not  an  argument,  still  less  a 
declamation.  But  there  is  another  English 
that  awaits  attention. 

"What,"  says  some  one,  "this  complex  of 
sounds  and  sights  and  air-pulses  and  wagging 
jaws  and  nerve  tremors,  singly  or  all  put 
together,  is  that  what  you  call  English? 
Would  the  sounds,  sky,  river,  bird,  tree,  moon, 
and  so  forth,  be  English,  be  language  at  all, 
if  no  thoughts  went  along  with  them?  And 
does  not  the  English  language  exist  in  this 
thought-series?"  The  reviews  make  sport  of 
Prof.  Max  Mueller's  assertion  that  language 


134         SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

is  thought;  that  there  is,  there  can  be,  no 
thought  without  language;  that,  in  effect,  if 
there  were  no  word  tree,  or  some  such  symbol, 
there  would  be  no  tree  for  us.  Prof.  Max 
Mueller,  I  grant,  has  many  thoughts,  for  which 
it  would  be  hard  for  anyone,  even  for  the 
Professor  himself  to  find  any  scientific  founda- 
tion. Such  was  his  unfortunate  Turanian 
group  of  languages.  Such  was  the  notion 
which  he  shared  with  his  time  that  the  Indo- 
Europeans  had  their  origin  in  Asia.  Such  was 
his  theory,  not  his  alone,  of  the  three  stages  in 
the  development  of  language.  Such  was  his 
theory  of  mythology,  and  his  reconstruction 
of  the  religious  past.  Deduct  all  these  things 
and  even  more;  we  can  still  leave  him  his 
contention  that  language  is  thought  and 
thought  is  language.  Not  that  even  here  his 
doctrine  needs  not  to  be  pruned  of  many 
excrescences,  and  its  exposition  translated 
into  the  language  of  another  system  of 
thought  than  his  own.  What  is  worth  retain- 
ing of  this  doctrine,  somewhat  paradoxically 
expressed,  "Without  language,  no  thought"? 

The  change  has  been  from  homogeneous  to 
heterogeneous,  from  indefinite  to  definite, 
from  incoherent  to  coherent.  I  use  Spencer's 
terms  to  express  a  fact  that  is  admitted  by  all 
without  committing  myself  to  their  implica- 
tions in  the  Spencerian  philosophy.  Now  a 


SEVEN  PROCESSES  OF  LANGUAGE      135 

mind  that  is  at  any  stage  of  that  process 
does  violence,  as  it  were,  to  itself,  to  retrace 
its  course,  to  rethink  what  it  has  outgrown. 
What  is  it  that  has  given  our  thoughts  their 
present  arrangement,  has  made  there  to  be 
thoughts  at  all?  What,  but  social  intercourse, 
communication,  and  that  which  makes  com- 
munication possible,  language?  Consider 
your  experience  of  sights,  colors,  odors,  stars, 
clouds,  suns,  moons,  meteors,  tempests,  light- 
nings, thunders,  that  rush  of  ever-changing 
sensations  that  makes  up  one  of  the  strands  of 
life  from  infancy  to  maturity;  were  it  not 
that  you  have  the  word  "sky,"  how  would  you 
discern  its  meaning  amid  this  cluster  of 
impressions?  Is  it  not  this  word  that  gives 
unity  to  that  experience?  Pass  in  review  all 
the  times  when  you  have  heard  that  word, 
all  the  myriads  of  sentences  into  which  it  has 
entered.  Remember  that  you  did  not  look 
up  the  meaning  of  the  word  in  the  dictionary, 
that  you  did  not  get  at  it  through  the  medium 
of  other  words,  that  it  was  not  told  to  you; 
but  that  you  have  been  going  on  guessing 
more  or  less  consciously  what  English  speak- 
ers mean  by  that  word.  In  time  that  symbol, 
that  sound,  "sky,"  groups  and  connects  and 
unifies  and  substantializes  all  these  elements, 
makes  of  them  a  coherent  whole,  which,  in 
the  absence  of  such  a  connecting  link,  would 


136          SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

have  lain  dispersed  and  disordered  in  the 
mind.  "Words,"  says  Sir  William  Hamilton, 
"are  nothing  but  signs  for  the  factitious  unities 
of  thought."  "Factitious" — mark  the  word! 
Signs,  not  for  things,  but  for  what  we  have 
put  together  and  agreed  to  call  things.  That 
perhaps  is  all  that  things  are.  Why  we  have 
put  some  experiences  together  and  connected 
them  by  a  name,  and  not  put  other  things 
together  in  thought  nor  connected  them  by  a 
name,  is  a  question  which  it  is  almost  useless 
for  anyone  to  attack  who  has  not  an 
acquaintance  with  many  languages  and  many 
minds.  It  should  be  the  aim  of  some  school 
to  supply  these  conditions,  and  by  neither 
attacking  nor  defending,  in  the  present  con- 
fusion, any  single  doctrine,  to  enable  men  to 
see  of  what  elements  it  consists  and  what  is 
its  range. 

Survey  the  scene  that  our  minds  present. 
We  ascribe  reality  to  what  our  names  stand 
for.  Adam  probably  thought  till  he  learned 
better  that  the  monkeys  on  the  limb  were  a 
part  of  the  tree,  and  gave,  foolishly  enough,  a 
single  name  to  what  he  mistook  for  a  unity. 
We  find  it  difficult  to  believe  that  our  own 
minds  are  merely  bundles  of  just  such 
Adamitic  conceptions.  We  do  not  often  have 
occasion  to  speak,  as  of  an  indivisible  whole, 
of  the  group  of  phenomena  involved  or  con- 


SEVEN    PROCESSES    OF     LANGUAGE  !$/ 

nected  in  the  transit  of  a  negro  over  a  rail- 
fence  with  a  melon  under  his  arm  while  the 
moon  is  just  passing  behind  a  cloud.  But 
if  this  collocation  of  phenomena  were  of 
frequent  occurrence,  and  if  we  did  have 
occasion  to  speak  of  it  often,  and  if  its  happen- 
ing were  likely  to  affect  the  money  market,  we 
should  have  some  name,  as  "wousin,"  to 
denote  it  by.  People  would  in  time  be  dis- 
puting whether  the  existence  of  wousin 
involved  necessarily  a  rail-fence,  and  whether 
the  term  could  be  applied  when  a  white  man 
was  similarly  related  to  a  stone  wall. 

Let  us  not  flatter  ourselves  that  we  have 
no  such  words  in  our  minds,  centers  of  crystal- 
lization, around  which  are  grouped  our  own 
concepts  which  we  mistake  for  realities.  Yes, 
reality  is  such  a  word;  mind  is  such  a  word; 
English  is  such  a  word.  After  all  the  phases 
of  existence  which  I  have  attributed  to  the 
English  language,  seen  English,  air-English, 
mouth-English,  nerve-English,  sound-English, 
sense-English — I  fear  that  I  shall  have  to 
admit,  on  nearer  and  closer  scrutiny,  that 
what  we  call  English  does  not  exist  at  all. 
English  is  an  abstraction  from  a  multitude  of 
individuals  or  particulars.  Does  Bunyanese 
exist?  Where  shall  we  find  Carlylese?  If  a 
book  should  be  found,  and  one  man  should 
contend  that  Bunyan  wrote  it,  and  another 


138          SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

should  deny  this,  each  would  assume  the 
existence  of  some  standard  of  Bunyanese  by 
which  the  question  might  be  decided.  If  you 
have  ever  read  such  controversies,  and  used 
your  best  endeavor  to  find  out  what  was  the 
Bunyanese  of  A,  and  what  the  Bunyanese  of 
B,  and  what  the  real  Bunyanese  (the  only  one 
that  would  satisfy  your  love  of  truth),  you 
might  come  to  question  whether  there  was 
such  a  thing  as  Bunyanese  after  all. 

And  now  take  that  much  wider  abstraction, 
the  English  language.  Here  is  a  name.  It 
stands  for  something  in  my  mind  and  in 
yours.  Whether  the  two  agree  or  not,  we 
have  not  many  opportunities  of  ascertaining. 
Now  what  is  the  signification  of  your  name? 
Can  you  give  me  any  test  by  which  what  is 
English  is  without  fail  discriminated  from 
what  is  not  English?  I  have  been  looking 
and  hearkening  for  this  English  at  intervals 
my  life  long;  all  I  can  find  is  a  scrap  here,  a 
bit  there,  and  the  English  language  I  fear  I 
shall  never  get  to  hear  or  to  see  or  to  know. 
Or  shall  I  say  of  it  as  Saint  Augustine  says  of 
Time:  "Ask  me  what  English  is,  I  do  not 
know;  do  not  ask  me,  I  know"?  This  general, 
this  abstract,  this  ideal  English,  this  standard 
which  most  appear  to  think  exists  somewhere, 
though  few  can  agree  as  to  where  it  is  to  be 
found,  we  may  almost  conclude  that  it  never 


SEVEN   PROCESSES     OF   LANGUAGE  139 

has  existed,  does  not  exist  now,  and  never  will 
exist  till  the  Pure  and  True  is  established 
among  men. 

Let  us  now  briefly  recapitulate,  though  in  a 
different  order.  We  may  place  at  one  end  of 
the  series  thought-English,  that  is,  emotions 
and  feelings  so  grouped  and  arranged  as  to  be 
communicable  by  an  Englishman  to  an 
Englishman.  The  next  stage  is  nerve-English 
which  breaks  up  into  several  different  dialects, 
as  it  were,  according  to  the  direction  in  which 
the  nerve-force  moves  on  to  the  muscles, 
where  something  exists  which  we  had  not 
previously  noted  but  which  might  be  called 
muscle-English.  Next,  we  have  movement- 
English,  and  this  likewise  divides  itself  into 
several  species;  for  the  fingers  may  move  as 
in  writing  or  typewriting  or  in  making  the  so- 
called  deaf-and-dumb  alphabet,  or  the  move- 
ment may  be  limited  to  the  lungs  and  mouth. 
We  come  now  to  vibration-English  and  this 
again  is  of  several  kinds;  inasmuch  as  the 
vibrations  may  be  of  the  luminiferous  ether, 
or  of  air  or  of  some  solid  as  a  wire.  The  first 
results  in  sight-English,  the  others  in  sound- 
English.  But  at  this  point  these  Englishes 
are  converted  into  nerve-English  again,  to 
become  in  its  turn  thought-English.  But 
nowhere  in  all  these  transfers  do  we  find  the 
abstract,  the  ideal  English. 


I4O         SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

So  intricate  is  the  language-process  when 
viewed  even  thus  cursorily.  There  are  tfrose 
who  have  studied  each  of  these  languages 
with  as  much  detail  as  the  present  stage  of 
our  advancement  allows.  Exact  measure- 
ments have  taken  the  place  of  vague 
imaginings.  Force,  pitch  and  duration  have 
been  analyzed  by  means  of  instruments  of 
precision;  and  there  is  already  hope  of  general 
agreement  on  many  points  which  are  involved 
in  the  true  theory  of  "mere  words." 


Nine   Uses  of  Language 


NINE   USES   OF   LANGUAGE 

The  shapes  of  animals  that  live  to-day  on 
the  earth  are  but  a  remnant  of  the  numberless 
forms  that  have  existed.  Tennyson  says  of 
Nature:  "So  careful  of  the  type  she  seems,  so 
careless  of  the  single  life."  And  then  he 
adds:  "So  careful  of  the  type?  But  no,  from 
scarped  cliff  and  quarried  stone  she  cries:  'A 
thousand  types  are  gone;  I  care  for  nothing; 
all  shall  go.' "  The  movements  of  animals  as 
well  as  their  shapes  have  undergone  a  similar 
succession  of  changes.  The  accumulations  of 
nervous  energy  are  discharged  along  muscles. 
These  produce  countless  movements,  visible 
and  invisible.  Some  of  these  movements 
impair  or  destroy  the  organism  that  makes 
them.  There  survive  then  the  movements 
that  maintain  or  promote  the  efficiency  of 
organisms;  and,  together  with  these,  numerous 
motions  that  are  practically  indifferent.  Some 
of  these,  however,  turn  out  to  be  really  useful 
in  a  new  way,  in  expending  a  superfluous 
amount  of  energy  which  might  else  prove 
detrimental  either  by  interfering  with  desir- 
able movements  or  by  setting  up  undesirable 
movements.  Among  the  indifferent  move- 
Ms 


144         SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

ments  are  certain  of  those  made  by  jaws,  lips, 
tongue  and  palate.  These  indifferent  move- 
ments are  constantly  associated  with  those 
that  the  organism  must  perform  in  the  chew- 
ing and  swallowing  of  food  and  in  breathing. 
Accordingly  they  become  the  easiest  to  make 
and  are  constantly  repeated  without  conscious 
effort.  Now  these  motions  are  precisely  such 
as  communicate  to  air  the  vibrations  that 
make  the  sounds  of  common  speech;  and  the 
first  use  of  talking — of  "tonguing" — the  first 
function  of  language  is  to  dissipate  super- 
fluous and  obstructive  nerve-force.  This  first 
and  earliest  service  language  still  continues  to 
perform.  These  muscular  movements  that 
result  in  vocal  sounds,  some  may  hesitate  to 
call  language.  They  may  be  bound  by  the 
distinctions  that  words  have  fastened  on  their 
minds.  They  may  at  least  call  these  mouth- 
made  sounds  the  raw  material  of  language,  or 
language  in  the  rough.  Long  before  reflec- 
tion, before  consciousness  even,  through  ages 
on  ages,  this  stratum  was,  from  which  all 
speech  of  men  has  been  quarried — all  song,  all 
poetry,  all  literature;  but  the  material  pre- 
ceded the  use  made  of  it.  Grant  that  this  is 
language  at  so  low  a  stage  that  man's  fellow 
creatures  may  surpass  him  in  it,  still  we  must 
note  the  beginnings  of  things  to  understand 
the  riper  growths.  These  utterances  repeat 


NINE    USES    OF     LANGUAGE  145 

themselves,  they  exhibit  resemblances  and 
differences,  they  recur  in  certain  sequences, 
they  reemerge  when  the  incidents  happen 
again  that  first  called  them  forth.  The  flow 
of  nervous  energy  wears  its  own  channel. 
The  sounds  become  habits.  They  acquire 
definiteness  in  the  chirping  and  twittering  of 
birds,  in  howlings,  roarings,  bleatings,  bray- 
ings,  in  whisperings,  hummings,  gruntings, 
sighings,  ah-and-ohings,  and  so  forth — names 
all  too  definite  now  to  express  that  wonder- 
fully varied  infinitude  of  unintentional,  uncon- 
scious modulations,  which,  originally  accom- 
panying necessary  actions,  become  associated 
with  feelings,  and  affording  relief  to  pent-up 
energies,  constitute  the  nucleus  of  human 
speech.  Is  it  possible  to  find  out  what  was 
first  done  with  this  accumulated  material,  and 
thus  ascertain  the  second  use  of  language? 

This  second  use  is  the  direction  of  motion 
in  others,  both  men  and  animals.  There  may 
be  little  consciousness  either  in  the  utterer  or 
in  the  hearer,  and  yet  a  cry  may  serve  to 
attract  or  repel,  to  cause  rest  or  motion,  to 
establish  relations  of  action  among  the 
members  of  a  community.  The  utility  of  these 
actions  may  lead  to  their  frequent  repetition, 
although  there  may  be  no  thought  of  their 
utility  .nor  intention  of  producing  the  result 
which  follows.  A  later  stage  of  reflection  may 


146  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

disclose  the  usefulness  of  the  connections  thus 
established  between  sounds  and  actions,  but  it 
seems  certain  that  no  foresight  of  such  utility 
led  to  their  adoption.  Pulses  of  air  impinging 
on  ear-drums  might  arouse  very  little  con- 
sciousness even  of  sounds,  might  suggest  no 
idea  of  the  situation  of  things  such  as  would 
be  awakened  in  a  developed  intelligence,  yet 
might  unlock  nervous  energy  which  would  be 
dissipated  in  motion.  This  condition  was 
once  all  but  universal,  and  still  survives  in  the 
animal  world  and  in  many  relations  of  human 
life.  It  is  found  too  amid  civilizations,  even 
in  our  schools.  So  long  as  the  utterance  of 
certain  sounds  secures  the  performance  of 
certain  processes,  there  may  be  very  little 
ideation  required  either  in  teacher  or  learner. 
This  unconscious  or  subconscious  response  in 
action  to  unconsciously  uttered  sounds,  plays 
a  great  part  in  all  social  piocesses.  We  are 
much  more  automatic  than  many  of  us  sup- 
pose; and  a  great  deal  of  what  is  called  con- 
certed action  has  its  origin  less  in  will  and 
intelligence  than  in  organization.  It  is  the 
response  of  the  bud  to  the  sun,  of  the  lungs  to 
the  influent  air.  Many  of  these  reactions  may 
never  rise  into  consciousness;  or,  if  once  they 
emerge,  may  pass  out  of  consciousness  again, 
should  the  environment  become  constant. 
Some  change  in  surroundings  brings  about 


NINE    USES     OF    LANGUAGE  147 

a  conflict  of  opposing  impulses,  awakens  con- 
sciousness; and  language  assumes  its  third  use 
or  function;  that  of  the  communication  of 
ideas.  There  is  nothing  mysterious  about 
this,  nothing  more  mysterious  than  that  the 
odor  of  a  rose  should  bring  the  memory  of  its 
shape.  Those  sounds  which  we  call  language 
have  no  other  power  to  awaken  ideas  in  our 
mind  than  that  which  they  derive  from  having 
been  previously  associated  in  our  experience 
with  these  ideas.  The  processes  by  which 
millions  of  men  have  come  to  think  alike 
when  they  hear  book,  mountain,  the,  when, 
political,  conchoid,  the  sun  will  rise  to-morrow, 
etc.,  was  long  and  intricate;  and  the  possibility 
of  a  knowledge  of  the  details  is  lost  to  us 
forever.  The  general  conditions  and  aspects 
of  the  process  may  be  ascertained.  At  any 
rate  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  believe  that  the 
sounds  carry  about  the  meaning  with  them. 
Bibles  and  oaths  and  creeds  and  platforms 
and  laws  have  been  discussed  as  if  the  con- 
nection between  sound  and  sense  was  like  that 
between  two  intersecting  lines  and  four  co- 
vertical  angles — as  if  one  could  never  think  of 
the  one  without  the  other.  Men  seemed  to 
believe  that  the  meaning  of  words  could  be 
learned  from  verbal  definitions.  The  pos- 
sibility of  communication  rests  less  on  language 
than  on  sympathy  and  similar  experiences. 


148  SWAIN   SCHOOL   LECTURES 

A  sound  goes  at  one  time  with  an  infinity  of 
particulars — Europe,  the  English  Constitution; 
at  another,  with  only  one  or  a  few,  point, 
furlong.  The  sound  shifts  from  meaning  to 
meaning,  from  like  to  like,  from  near  to  near, 
from  less  to  more,  from  more  to  less,  and 
across  every  possible  link  that  exists  between 
thought  and  thought.  For  the  meaning  of 
words  we  go  to  life,  to  experience,  to  thought, 
to  things,  and  only  in  the  last  resort  to  the 
dictionaries.  They  can  help  only  those  that 
have  helped  themselves.  Dictionaries  are  as 
meaningless  to  many  as  if  they  were  not  full 
of  meaning.  The  phenomena  that  have  been 
named  vanish  in  comparison  with  those  that 
have  never  been  named.  In  no  respect  do  the 
inferences  that  are  made  from  language  differ 
from  the  inferences  that  are  made  from  any 
other  signs  or  things,  that  is,  as  inferences.  It 
would  be  hard  to  establish  any  important 
difference  between  the  origin  of  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  relation  of  language  to  other 
phenomena  which  are  called  its  meaning,  and 
the  origin  of  our  knowledge  of  the  relation  of 
the  outside  of  a  tree  to  its  inner  structure,  or 
the  relation  between  any  two  series  of  facts 
that  imply  each  other's  peculiarities.  There 
are  metaphors  apart  from  language,  meton- 
ymies, or  rather  metasemacies,  synecdoches, 
ambiguities,  and  the  like,  in  geology  for 


NINE    USES    OF   LANGUAGE  149 

instance,  in  any  present  indications  from  which 
we  infer  what  we  do  not  immediately 
experience.  Even  in  language  intention  is 
insignificant  in  comparison  with  other  agencies; 
and  to  Nature  intentions  are  still  ascribed 
even  by  those  who  know  better.  In  the 
versifications  of  overworn  philosophies,  we 
find:  "For  words,  like  Nature,  half  reveal  and 
half  conceal  the  soul  within,"  and  again:  "But 
I  who  seeking  everywhere  her  secret  meanings 
in  her  deeds,  and  finding  that  of  fifty  seeds 
she  often  brings  but  one  to  bear."  Where  all 
is  mystery,  it  is  time  to  outgrow  the  provin- 
cial habit  of  finding  something  peculiarly 
mysterious  in  guessing  at  the  thoughts  of 
our  fellows  from  the  sounds  their  mouths 
make.  Every  parish  has  its  pool  that  has 
never  been  fathomed. 

The  fourth  use  of  language  is  for  expression. 
The  habit  of  communication  has  become  so 
ingrained  in  social  man  that  even  when  alone 
by  himself,  he  puts  his  thoughts  in  words.  If 
he  does  not  speak  or  write  the  words,  he 
imagines  them.  He  feels  dissatisfied  until  he 
has  contrived  some  expression  for  his  thought. 
He  may  talk  to  an  imaginary  hearer  or  to 
himself,  or  may  think  in  words  with  no  con- 
sciousness of  his  fellowmen.  Curious  lan- 
guages have  grown  in  this  way  in  the  minds 
of  lone  thinkers  and  investigators,  which  are 


I$O         SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

utterly  unintelligible  to  others,  but  as  con- 
sistent and  decipherable  as  a  cuneiform 
inscription.  The  language  of  expression  may 
"spread  the  images  abroad  that  else  lie  dark 
and  buried  in  the  soul,"  but  it  does  not,  like 
the  language  of  communication,  produce  "that 
which  makes  thousands,  perhaps  millions 
think."  It  is  often  difficult  for  one  who  has 
caught  new  views  of  things  to  translate  the 
language  of  expression  into  that  of  communi- 
cation. The  necessity  of  communication 
forces  us  to  ask  what  the  signs  mean  to 
others;  for  our  own  purposes  we  may  use 
them  in  any  relation  we  please.  (Co-punct) 
(triangle-angle  bisectors)  and  (Man  sit  table) 
(write)  are  expressions  which,  however 
intelligible  and  useful,  and  for  some  purposes, 
necessary  to  myself,  must  become  in  order  to 
be  understood,  "The  lines  bisecting  the  angles 
at  the  vertices  of  a  triangle  meet  in  one 
point,"  and  "The  man  who  is  sitting  at  the 
table  is  writing."  Phenomena  admit  of  very 
different  classifications  from  those  on  which 
the  makers  of  language  have  laid  stress. 
New  forms  may  be  desired  which  shall  be  the 
same  for  expression  and  for  communication. 
Perhaps  they  may  get  themselves  intro- 
duced and  one  day  become  universal.  Mathe- 
matics, chemistry,  biology,  and  commerce  are 
pointing  the  way. 


NINE    USES    OF    LANGUAGE  151 

The  fifth  use  of  language  is  for  purposes  of 
record.  Long  before  the  introduction  of 
writing,  sentences  were  committed  to  memory. 
They  were  made  easier  to  learn  by  being 
thrown  into  some  form  of  verse,  and  at  the 
same  time  less  easy  to  alter  by  omissions  or 
insertions.  Verse-forms  have  had  many 
origins,  but  their  introduction  and  retention 
were  facilitated  by  the  possession  of  the  prop- 
erty of  being  easy  to  remember  and  hard  to 
change;  and  they  gained  impressiveness  from 
being  associated  with  chronicles  and  precepts, 
prayers  and  hymns.  Persons  remarkable  for 
a  retentive  memory  must  have  been  highly 
valued,  whatever  their  deficiencies  in  other 
respects  might  have  been.  Yet  the  invention 
of  writing  and  of  printing  gave  a  great  exten- 
sion to  this  function  of  language.  The  phono- 
graph has  added  another  possibility.  Nothing 
is  preserved  but  the  symbols;  the  meaning 
they  once  had  is  recoverable  by  processes 
precisely  analogous  to  those  by  which  any 
facts  not  directly  observable  are  ascertained. 
There  are  many  other  records  than  language 
proper;  and  the  name  language  has  been 
extended  to  all  things  that  have  served  as 
records. 

There  is  a  sixth  use  of  language — a  natural 
consequence  of  its  other  uses.  What  compels 
actions  and  movements  in  our  fellows,  whether 


152         SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

men  or  animals,  why  should  it  not  constrain 
those  other  things  which  the  philosophers  and 
poets  even  of  the  twentieth  century  endow 
with  life  and  personality — set  matter  in  motion 
and  even  call  down  the  moon  from  the  sky? 
Angels  and  demons  respond  to  charms,  spells, 
incantations,  mystical  sentences — relics  often- 
times of  old  speech  whose  meaning  has  been 
forgotten.  The  gods  have  a  language  of 
their  own,  never  used  except  in  addressing 
them,  or  by  those  entitled  to  address  them. 
This  use  of  language  still  obtains  with  the 
great  majority  of  the  human  race;  but  it  has 
been  abandoned  by  a  few  either  because  they 
have  ceased  to  believe  that  there  is  anything 
to  influence,  or  because  they  no  longer  believe 
that  anything  but  visible  and  tangible  animals 
can  be  influenced  in  that  way.  Moral  grounds 
have  been  alleged  for  abandoning  this  use: 

"How  pure  at  heart  and  sound  in  head, 
With  what  divine  affections  bold, 
Should  be  the  man  whose  thought  would  hold 
An  hour's  communion  with  the  dead. 

"In  vain  shalt  thou  or  any  call 
The  spirits  from  their  golden  day, 
Except  like  them  thou  too  canst  say, 
My  spirit  is  at  peace  with  all." 

That  use  of  language  which  stands  seventh 
in   my  enumeration   is  the    most  difficult    to 


NINE    USES    OF     LANGUAGE  153 

exhibit  intelligibly — the  use  of  language  as  an 
instrument  in  thinking.  By  thinking  I  mean 
just  simply  the  process  of  making  inferences, 
whether  from  original  data  or  from  other 
inferences.  The  beginnings  and  the  endings 
of  this  process  may  be  almost  exactly  alike  in 
a  hundred  individuals,  but  the  intermediate 
steps  may  differ  as  a  modern  flour-factory  from 
an  ancient  grist-mill.  Each  takes  grain  and 
delivers  flour,  but  there  all  resemblance  ends. 
Nearly  all  our  thinking  is  symbolical,  some- 
times most  absurdly  and  grotesquely  sym- 
bolical; but  still  it  serves  its  purpose.  This 
symbolism  is  commonly  made  by  dropping 
those  aspects  of  the  subject  which  do  not 
immediately  interest  us;  and  carrying  the 
mere  skeletons  and  fragments  of  things 
through  the  thought-process.  At  times  these 
skeletons  of  things  are  replaced  by  something 
more  sketchy  and  shadowy  and  evanescent. 
Artists,  musicians,  poets  come  the  nearest  to 
reality;  the  thinker  finds  some  bit  of  machin- 
ery which  will  transport  him  with  his  eyes 
shut  and  without  loiterings  by  the  way  from 
start  to  finish.  One  of  these  machines  is  the 
speech-image.  This  surely  is  as  little  like  the 
reality  which  we  say  it  stands  for  as  may  be. 
But  since  words  hang  together  with  words  as 
things  with  things,  since  there  is  a  certain 
parallelism  between  the  two  series,  we  may 


154         SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

travel  some  distance  along  the  word-way, 
instead  of  traveling  along  the  thing-way;  and 
we  may  appear  to  ourselves  and  to  others  to 
be  thinking  things,  when  we  are  merely  think- 
ing language.  There  are  some  symbols  not 
so  good  for  this  purpose  as  language  is. 
There  are  some  which  in  certain  matters  are 
so  much  better  that  they  do  what  language 
cannot  do  at  all  (ordinary  language,  I  mean); 
while  on  the  other  hand  there  are  results  of 
thinking  which  could  not  be  obtained  at  all 
without  language  or  symbols  of  sight  or  sound 
analogous  to  language. 

Suppose  some  one  to  assert:  The  gostak 
distims  the  doshes.  You  do  not  know  what  this 
means;  nor  do  I.  But  if  we  assume  that  it  is 
English,  we  know  that  the  doshes  are  distimmed 
by  the  gostak.  We  know  too  that  one  distimmer 
of  doshes  is  a  gostak.  If  moreover  the  doshes 
are  galloons,  we  know  that  some  galloons  are 
distimmed  by  the  gostak.  And  so  we  may  go 
on,  and  so  we  often  do  go  on,  not  employing 
the  words  to  stand  for  things  or  to  call  up 
thoughts  to  our  minds,  but  to  replace  things, 
to  be  substitutes  for  thoughts.  A  whole  para- 
graph may  be  composed  in  this  way,  statement 
being  linked  to  statement,  without  any  sus- 
picion on  the  part  of  writer  or  speaker,  that  he 
is  doing  something  quite  remarkable.  Rules 
learned  in  childhood,  maxims  and  proverbs, 


NINE    USES    OF     LANGUAGE  155 

general  statements  quite  as  meaningless  as  the 
above,  are  frequently  the  sole  contents  of  the 
mind  of  him  who  utters  them.  The  classi- 
fications already  made,  the  feelings  that  cluster 
about  them,  the  words  that  express  them, 
dominate  the  mind  and  incapacitate  it  from 
doing  anything  but  repeat  the  old  formulas. 
A  language  developed  copiously  and  symmet- 
rically makes  easier  this  process  of  word- 
thinking.  If  there  were  noun,  verb,  adjective 
and  adverb,  related  in  form  as  well  as  in 
meaning,  the  substitution  of  phrase  for  phrase 
would  require  less  attention  than  where,  as  in 
English,  meaning  and  form  so  often  conflict; 
as,  boy,  boyish,  puerile.  Thought  may  ebb 
very  low,  the  stream  of  language  may  flow  in 
its  place;  and  this  seventh  use  come  to  resem- 
ble the  second,  the  liberation  of  motion,  no 
longer  instantaneous  indeed,  but  after  an 
interval.  The  old  logicians  had  a  glimpse  of 
this  use  of  language.  They  fancied  that  it 
admitted  of  unlimited  extension.  They 
believed  that  language  had  a  quite  peculiar 
relation  to  thought;  and  they  converted  its 
sentences  into  propositions,  which  they  twisted 
into  hideous  shapes  in  order  to  elicit  from 
combinations  of  them  still  other  propositions. 
There  was  nothing  objectionable  in  this 
practical  testing  of  their  hypothesis  about  the 
nature  of  language.  The  result  did  not  justify 


I  56         SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

their  expectations.  But  modern  logicians  have 
found  better  ways  of  attaining  some  of  the 
things  the  old  logicians  sought;  and  have  left 
the  discussion  of  language  to  grammarians 
and  rhetoricians,  and  to  those  who  like  to 
remember  what  even  time  forgets. 

It  is  this  aspect  of  language  which  has  given 
some  countenance  to  such  beliefs  as  that 
language  and  thought  are  identical — no 
thought  without  language.  Such  ideas  spring 
up  readily  in  minds  that  are  absorbed  in  read- 
ing and  writing,  that  live  in  and  on  libraries, 
that  find  in  books  the  sources  of  all  they 
know.  Sculptors,  painters,  musicians,  archi- 
tects, engineers,  are  exposed  to  different 
influences,  are  likely  to  come  to  quite  different 
conclusions  about  language — the  language,  I 
mean,  which  men  speak  and  write,  and  not 
those  other  things  which  are  called  languages 
by  those  who  find  in  vague  and  fanciful 
resemblances  grounds  for  misusing  names. 

Pass  now  to  the  eighth  use  of  language. 
We  delight  in  sounds,  even  in  the  noises  from 
squibs  and  cannons.  There  is  no  disputing 
about  tastes;  else  so  many  volumes  on  aesthet- 
ics would  hardly  have  been  written.  Pleasure 
that  sound  gives,  some  think,  is  the  result  of 
some  association  of  the  sound  with  things  that 
give  pleasure — one's  fellows  for  instance. 
Whatever  its  origin,  to  give  delight  merely  as 


NINE    USES    OF     LANGUAGE  157 

sound  is  a  distinct  use  of  language.  Language 
has  its  meter,  its  long-short  series,  its  rhythm, 
its  loud-soft  series,  its  melody,  its  high-low 
series,  but  these  it  has  in  common  with  all 
successions  of  sounds.  It  has,  besides,  its 
peculiar  quality,  its  vowel-consonant  series. 
We  justly  pay  great  honor  to  those  who  mould 
this  material  of  our  common  talk  into  new 
forms  that  reveal  to  us  capabilities  of  speech 
before  undreamed  of.  The  whole  language 
is  lifted  by  such  efforts.  Each  becomes 
ashamed  of  his  mumblings  and  mutterings, 
and  would  rid  himself  of  his  shambling, 
shuffling,  slouching  speech,  hopes  indeed  that 
instead  of  being  taught  to  follow  a  fashion,  he 
may  learn  what  the  fashion  should  be.  He 
wants  a  moral  pronunciation,  a  pronunciation 
determined  by  conformity  to  ideals,  and  not 
suffered  to  sink  to  the  level  of  howling  with 
the  wolves,  and  doing  at  Rome  as  the  Romans 
do.  Composition  waits  on  execution.  There 
can  be  no  great  poets,  in  the  sense  of  masters 
of  the  resources  of  speech-sounds,  except 
among  a  people  who  are,  in  their  measure  and 
degree,  masters  of  the  sounds  of  speech. 
Meter,  rhythm,  melody,  color  of  a  phrase,  in 
one  word,  its  sound — rivals  its  meaning.  Let 
us  forget  for  a  moment  that  language  is  any- 
thing else  but  sound,  that  it  has  ever  ceased 
to  be  one  with  the  chirping  of  crickets,  the 


158  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

patter  of  rain,  the  rustling  of  leaves,  "the  coo- 
ing of  doves  in  immemorial  elms  and  murmur 
of  innumerable  bees."  What  skill  arrays  such 
a  sequence  of  syllables  in  our  mother-English 
as  the  following: 

Look,  I  come  to  the  test,  a  tiny  poem, 
All  composed  in  a  meter  of  Catullus, 
All  in  quantity,  careful  of  my  motion, 
Like  the  skater  on  ice  that  hardly  bears  him, 
Lest  I  fall  unawares  before  the  people. 

—  Tennyson. 

But  this  subtle  succession  of  the  crotchets 
and  quavers  of  speech  cannot  vie  with  the 
glooms  and  flashes  of  the  varied  resemblances 
and  differences  of  the  vowel-consonant 
system: 

All  over  the  gray,  soft  shallows 
Hover  the  colors  and  clouds  of  the  twilight,  void 

of  a  star, 
As  a  bird   unfleaged    is    the    broad-winged    night, 

whose  winglets  are  callow 
Yet,  but    soon    with    their  plumes    will  cover  her 

brood  from  afar, 
Cover  the  brood  of  her  worlds  that  cumber  the  skies 

with  their  blossoms 
Thick  as  the  darkness  of  leaf-shadowed   spring  is 

encumbered  with  flowers.  — Swinburne. 

But  another  poet  shall  delight  us  with  the 
tumultuously  regular  interchange  of  soft  and 
loud,  of  weak  and  strong  syllables: 


NINE    USES    OF     LANGUAGE  I  59 

Nay,  swart  spinsters!     So  I  surprise  you 
Making  and  marring  the  fortunes  of  man, 

Huddling — no  marvel,  your  enemy  eyes  you — 
Head  by  head,  bat-like,  blots  under  the  ban 

Of  daylight,  earth's  blessing  since  time  began. 

Back  to  thy  blest  earth,  prying  Apollo, 

Shaft  upon  shaft,  transpierce  with  thy  beams 

Earth  to  the  center — spare  but  this  hollow 

Hewn  out  of  night's  heart,  where  mystery  seems 

Mewed   from   day's  malice;    wake   earth   from    her 
dreams!  —  Browning. 

But  longs  and  shorts,  labials  and  gutturals, 
louds  and  softs  are  blended  in  any  utterance 
with  highs  and  lows,  and  from  these  derive  an 
infinite  variety,  an  indescribable  wealth  of 
forms.  The  repetitions  and  refrains,  in  the 
absence  of  any  appropriate  notation,  indicate 
by  their  very  sameness  on  the  printed  page, 
that  inflection  is  required  to  give  the  diversity 
desired  by  ear  and  taste;  not  to  mention  at  this 
point  the  differences  of  inflection  demanded 
by  differences  of  meaning  in  the  same  phrase 
when  used  in  different  passages. 

To  the  nine  uses  of  language  which  I  am 
considering  others  might  be  added;  nor,  how- 
ever easy  it  is  to  distinguish  the  uses  from 
one  another,  does  any  one  of  them  often 
appear  unaccompanied  by  another.  From  our 
consciousness  of  sounds  as  sounds,  we  can 
rarely  separate  the  emotions,  not  to  say  ideas, 


l6o          SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

that  have  accompanied  the  sounds  in  the  past; 
and,  while  we  are  fancying  that  we  are  regard- 
ing language  simply  as  sound,  we  may  be 
compelled  to  note  that  the  language  is  reliev- 
ing nervous  tension,  liberating  motion,  genera- 
ting ideas  and  feelings,  mirroring  our  minds  to 
ourselves,  bridging  time,  invoking  spirits, 
facilitating  thought— in  a  word,  performing  at 
one  and  the  same  time  all  the  functions  of 
which  it  is  capable. 

The  ninth  use  of  language  is  the  most 
remote,  if  not  from  general  apprehension,  at 
least  from  general  interest.  The  purely 
scientific  aspects  of  any  subject,  as  animals, 
societies,  spaces,  has  never  appealed  to  many 
minds.  There  might  be  few  alive,  if  it  had. 
"Providence,"  said  Kepler,  "has  kindly 
joined  astronomy  to  astrology,  that  the  latter 
may  support  the  former."  Philology,  the  pure 
science  of  language,  has  slowly  emerged  from 
a  world  of  dreams  and  superstitions  and  idle 
hopes.  To  establish  the  unity  of  the  human 
race,  to  prove  ourselves  the  sons  of  gods,  to 
discover  some  secret  whereby  nature  and  men 
could  be  controlled,  to  attain  some  principle 
for  the  solution  of  all  the  riddles  of  existence; 
or,  lower  yet,  to  remount  to  the  sources  from 
which  the  stream  of  language  flowed,  and  to 
return,  bathed  and  quickened  in  that  spring, 
to  move  the  hearts  of  men  with  speech  and 


NINE    USES    OF     LANGUAGE  l6l 

song — who  entertains  now  such  hopes?  But 
there  has  arisen  meantime  the  study  of  stars 
and  planets,  of  the  growth  of  worlds,  of 
millions  of  years  of  changes  in  the  earth's 
crust  before  ever  a  sound  was  uttered  or  a 
being  existed  to  utter  a  sound,  of  the  tribes  of 
plants  and  animals,  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  years  of  brute  humanity,  of  myriads  of 
languages  that  have  perished,  of  thousands  of 
barbarous  languages  surrounding  the  few  that 
have  become  vehicles  of  culture.  There  has 
arisen  too  the  study  of  bones  and  muscles  and 
nerves,  of  the  nature  of  sounds  and  their 
dependence  on  vibrations,  of  the  emergence 
and  development  of  brute  and  human  feelings 
and  ideas,  till  language  appeared  as  the  late 
sequent  of  a  multitude  of  phenomena  the 
existence  and  properties  of  which  had  been 
established  without  any  appeal  to  language; 
and  then  the  study  of  the  phenomena  of 
language  itself,  the  uniformities,  the  recur- 
rences of  likenesses  among  them,  the  so-called 
laws,  the  rules  if  you  will.  These  are,  of 
course,  what  some  philosophers  have  called 
derivative  laws,  that  is,  laws  or  facts  which 
must  be  resolved  into  phenomena  outside  of 
their  own  subject.  Thus  the  persistences,  the 
repetitions,  the  survivals,  the  uniformities, 
even  the  things  which  seem  the  hardest  and 
fastest  and  firmest,  have  the  unity  and  identity 


1 62          SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

of  the  rainbow  or  wave-curve,  a  formal  con- 
stancy with  incessant  change  of  material, 
perpetually  exposed  to  modification  and  even 
to  extinction.  The  perishing  and  perishable 
states  of  language  which  I  have  in  mind,  are 
not,  as  you  may  be  supposing,  the  fads  of  the 
nineteenth  or  the  humors  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  the  established  slang  of  any  epoch. 
These  are  the  show-flowers  of  a  season; 
tulips  yesterday,  chrysanthemums  to-day,  and 
it  may  be  some  strange  form  of  sand-weed  to- 
morrow. It  is  not  shapes  and  colors  such  as 
these  that  effort  may  give  to  the  most  intract- 
able material  that  I  am  thinking  of.  I  do  not 
even  mean  those  deeper  persistences  which 
have  endured  for  centuries,  consisting  merely 
in  the  repetition  of  countless  individuals  that 
resemble  each  other  as  everyone  has  come  to 
see.  Most  minds  discern  some  points  of 
resemblance  between  two  oysters;  and 
amicabalis  has  many  elements  of  likeness  to 
amiable.  The  uniformities  that  I  mean  are 
deeper,  more  permanent  than  these.  They 
stretch  across  the  ages;  they  link  together 
not  like  forms,  but  forms  unlike,  as  you  would 
call  them,  not  only  at  first  sight,  but  at  second 
and  third  sight  too.  Perhaps  we  might  not 
be  educated  or  educable  to  see  the  connection, 
though  we  worked  over  it  for  a  lifetime. 

But    even    these    highest    abstractions    of 


NINE    USES    OF    LANGUAGE  163 

linguistic  science  in  seeking  which  some  find 
more  delight  than  in  rich  viands  or  costly 
apparel  or  popular  applause  or  anything  else 
the  world  offers,  even  these,  like  Herbert's 
rose,  have  their  roots  ever  in  their  graves. 
They  are  the  products  of  the  agency  of  lips 
and  teeth,  of  lungs  and  air,  of  nerves  and 
sensations;  things  which  are  themselves  very 
modifiable  and  very  variable;  things  which  are 
themselves  highly  derivative;  things  the  laws 
of  which,  if  any  should  be  surmised,  can  only 
be  established  by  tracing  them  back  to  the 
phenomena  which  precede  and  underlie  them. 
But  the  philologist  has  no  alternative.  The 
methods  of  modern  science  are  not  now 
Baconian;  in  fact  they  never  were.  The  col- 
lection of  facts  without  some  purpose,  without 
some  guiding  theory,  without  some  hypothesis 
to  refute  or  confirm,  in  short  without  some 
test  by  which  to  distinguish  relevant  from 
irrelevant  facts,  would  reduce  us  to  barbarism 
in  a  century.  Mendeleef  has  said  that  modern 
science  is  like  the  modern  bridge.  It  does  not 
rest,  as  the  old,  on  piers  placed  at  short 
intervals  from  bank  to  bank.  Through  the 
mist  and  over  the  chasm  it  is  built  out  from 
either  side.  It  has  no  strength  and  will 
sustain  no  weight  till  the  two  parts  meet. 
Will  they  ever  do  so?  Have  we  missed  our 
calculation?  We  shall  not  know  till  the  fabric 


164  SWAIN   SCHOOL   LECTURES 

is  complete;  and  with  the  driving  of  the  last 
bolt,  strength  diffuses  itself  through  the  whole 
and  the  parts  support  each  other.  Language 
is  among  the  most  recent  phenomena  that 
have  appeared  on  the  earth.  Its  thousands  of 
earlier  years  are  to  be  restored  only  by  prob- 
able deductions  from  the  study  of  savage 
tribes.  Of  its  later  years  many  aspects  have 
passed  into  oblivion.  Moving  amid  hypoth- 
eses and  ever  seeking  facts  to  test  them  by, 
the  philologist  presents  to  such  as  will  take 
some  pains  to  understand  him  a  picture  of  the 
language  life  of  the  earth.  Where  did  these 
three  or  four  thousand  languages  come  from? 
What  are  their  relations  to  one  another? 
What  is  their  geographical  distribution? 
What  is  their  succession  in  time?  What  are 
their  resemblances  and  differences?  What 
were  those  missing  links  which  we  must  sup- 
pose existed  to  connect  and  explain  the  frag- 
ments that  we  possess?  The  work  has  already 
progressed  far  enough  to  have  established  in 
some  minds  methods  of  investigation— for- 
mulas for  building  bridges,  to  recur  to  our 
former  illustration.  The  philologist  has  risen 
above  the  limitation  of  his  own  time,  his  own 
country  and  his  own  language.  He  has  beheld 
languages  so  different  from  his  own  that  he 
can  make  no  assertion  about  them  in  terms 
of  the  grammatical  vocabulary  of  his  own 


NINE    USES   OF    LANGUAGE  165 

speech.  He  has  seen  groups  of  sounds  that 
clumsily  expressed  the  rude  classifications  of 
a  savage  tribe  strained  and  stretched  and 
enlarged  to  communicate  the  thoughts  of 
millions  of  civilized  men,  while  yet  they  retain 
traces  of  their  earliest  structure,  however 
changed  in  function,  or  even  useless  and 
obstructive  they  may  have  become.  He  has 
been  led  to  see  that  language  has  many  uses 
and  must  be  looked  at  from  many  points  of 
view;  that  it  is  sometimes  a  comparatively 
harmless  discharge  of  troublesome  nervous 
energy;  that  it  liberates  nerve  force  and  sets 
muscles  in  motion,  thus  making  co-ordinated 
action  in  large  groups  of  men  and  animals 
possible  without  intelligence;  that  it  estab- 
lishes likenesses  in  thought  and  feeling  among 
men;  that  it  furnishes  each  in  the  privacy  of 
his  own  musings  with  pegs  and  lines  on  which 
he  may  hang  his  thoughts  to  air  and  dry;  that 
it  is  a  set  of  boxes  in  which  one  may  pack  his 
ideas  for  future  inspection,  even  if  a  rather 
insecure  repository;  that  it  is  a  collection  of 
spells  with  which  each  may  control  the  beings 
of  his  own  other  world,  if  he  has  one  of  his 
own,  to  his  own  satisfaction;  that  it  will  do  his 
thinking  for  him  sometimes  even  better  than 
he  can  do  it  for  himself;  that  its  sounds  are  a 
symphony  which  some  can  compose  and  hear, 
and  some  can  talk  about;  and  finally  the 


1 66  SWAIN   SCHOOL    LECTURES 

philologist  sees,  though  I  cannot,  that  there  is 
one  use  that  transcends  all  other  uses,  that  it 
is  namely  a  subject  for  study,  a  subject  superior 
to  all  others;  for  here  theologian  and  scientist 
and  classicist  meet,  here  nature  and  art  com- 
bine, here  matter  and  spirit  unite,  here  the  old 
cannot  dispense  with  the  new,  nor  the  new 
with  the  old. 


Many   Meanings    of  Money 


"What  terrible  blunders  we  have  made  in 
finance/'  says  one.  "Not  more  terrible  than 
others  have  made,"  retorts  another;  "not  more 
terrible  than  we  shall  make  again.  We  do  not 
even  know  that  there  is  any  other  way  of 
learning  than  by  actual  experience;  and  so 
actual  experience  we  must  have,  even  if  it 
kills  us  off,  to  make  room  for  those  who  may 
be  more  capable  of  learning."  "But,"  inter- 
rupts a  third,  "what  you  call  blunders  were 
the  wisest  things  we  ever  did;  we  need  the 
same  measures  now  and  we  mean  to  have 
them." 

Let  us  turn  from  the  consideration  of  such 
conflicting  views  to  the  contemplation  of 
ideals;  we  may  come  back  as  from  a  mountain 
journey  with  calmer  hearts  and  with  clearer 
vision. 

There  is  a  community  where  all  are  perfectly 
intelligent  and  perfectly  honest.  Each  remem- 
bers distinctly  every  thing  he  ever  did  or 
thought.  When  one  dies,  the  others  inherit 
his  knowledge.  They  have  no  visible  language. 
There  is  no  bookkeeping.  They  have  never 
even  experienced  the  need  of  a  standard  of 

value.      Why  have  a    medium  of    exchange, 

169 


I7O  SWAIN   SCHOOL   LECTURES 

when  all  things  are  at  will  media  of  exchange? 
Legal  tenders — the  conception  has  never 
found  lodgment  in  their  minds.  No  tyrant 
forces  them  to  give  more  or  to  take  less  than 
they  have  voluntarily  agreed  to  do.  They  tell 
you  on  the  instant  the  exchange-ratios  of  a 
dozen  different  articles  in  terms  of  any  one  of 
the  articles  you  please.  They  bear  all  this 
weight  of  knowledge  lightly  like  a  flower; 
and  seem  less  anxious  than  our  dealers  and 
traders.  Each  makes  his  purchases  with  what 
he  has  to  give  or  with  what  he  promises  to 
give  or  with  what  he  alleges  that  some  one 
has  promised  to  him — he  transfers,  that  is,  his 
promise.  You  would  fancy  that  there  was  in 
the  mind  of  each  a  perfect  picture  of  the  world 
he  lived  in;  and  that  every  train  of  cars  had 
its  counterpart  in  his  thought  with  images  of 
the  contents  of  the  freight-wagons.  I  will  not 
weary  you  with  details;  each  can  think  them 
out  for  himself.  Is  there  any  money  there? 
Yes;  this  very -promise  itself — this  unspoken, 
unwritten,  unrecorded  promise;  but  still  a 
promise  known,  a  promise  felt,  a  promise 
trusted,  and  with  good  reason.  But  if  perfect 
intelligence  and  perfect  integrity  could  ever 
have  failed  to  meet  the  obligations  incurred, 
the  loss  would  have  been  distributed  through 
all  the  community. 

And  here  I  encounter  a  difficulty  in  making 


MANY  MEANINGS  OF  MONEY         171 

myself  understood,  which  arises  from  no  fault 
of  mine,  I  think,  and  from  no  fault  of  yours, 
nor  from  any  defect  inherent  in  the  English 
language.  It  comes  from  a  quality  which  lies 
in  the  nature  of  all  things,  from  the  fact  which 
the  word  "Evolution"  expresses.  Once  men 
knew  just  what  they  meant  by  money,  some 
time  they  will  know  again;  now  they  do  not 
know.  Changes  are  taking  place  in  society 
and  in  our  ideas;  and  one  word  acquires  amid 
the  process  many  meanings.  I  can  give  you 
an  example  of  such  a  change  of  meaning  in 
the  word  "tangent."  It  was  once  a  Latin 
word  and  meant  any  thing  whatever  that 
touched  any  other  thing.  But  it  is  not  with 
that  old  and  vague  meaning  that  I  am  con- 
cerned. It  is  with  three  or  four  meanings 
which  will  hardly  appear  to  have  anything  to 
do  with  one  another,  if  you  are  not  familiar 
with  these  matters.  i.  A  tangent  is  a  line 
which  just  touches  a  curve.  2.  A  tangent  is 
the  quotient  of  one  leg  of  a  right  triangle  by 
the  other.  3.  A  tangent  is  the  sum  of  the 
following  infinite  series: 

2    .     16.    272    . 
x  +  —xs  +  —.x>  +  -V  *  + 
3!        5!         7! 

4.  A  tangent  is  eix  -  eix 

i  (eix  +  tr'x) 

Now  all  these  different  meanings  and  others 
besides  are  the  result  of  sliding  the  word  tan- 


SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

gent  from  one  thing  to  another  thing  which  had 
been  found  to  be  implied  in  the  former.  Each 
successive  meaning  is  harder  to  grasp  than  the 
preceding.  It  is  this  shifting  of  the  meaning 
of  words,  this  extension,  this  spiritualization  of 
their  signification,  that  is  merely  the  counter- 
part of  a  mental  growth  that  does  not  proceed 
at  the  same  rate  in  all  minds.  Human  affairs 
are  undergoing  great  changes,  and  human 
minds  are  changing  to  correspond  with  them. 
Money  is  the  word  bandied  to  and  fro;  but 
hardly  two  of  the  disputants  are  using  it  in 
the  same  sense  or  are  aware  of  its  many 
meanings.  The  last  meaning  may  be  the 
simplest,  and  yet,  paradoxical  as  it  seems,  may 
be  harder  to  make  intelligible  to  one  who  has 
not  thought  about  these  things  than  were  the 
earlier  views.  To  this  meaning,  then,  or  to 
each  and  everyone  of  the  instances  of  this 
meaning,  let  me  give  the  name  "money."  But 
what  meaning,  you  ask;  what  is  it  that  you 
are  talking  about?  You  made  a  long  digres- 
sion to  tell  us  what  we  all  knew  before,  that 
words  change  their  meanings;  and  now  you 
talk  about  a  something  or  other  that  you  pro- 
pose to  name  money.  Oh,  yes,  words  change 
their  meaning.  I  was  not  trying  to  illustrate 
so  trivial  a  truth  as  that.  They  change  their 
meaning  in  the  minds  of  thinking  men  in  a 
certain  definite  way,  so  that  the  new  meaning 


MANY  MEANINGS  OF  MONEY         1/3 

is  a  something  singled  out  from  the  old  mean- 
ing as  being  all  that  was  essential  for  the 
purpose  we  had  in  view;  it  drops  superfluities. 
That  is  what  I  wanted  to  say,  and  I  wish  to 
show  that  the  new  meaning  I  give  to  money 
is  a  meaning  implied  in  every  other  meaning 
of  the  word,  a  meaning  that  will  remain  when 
others  have  been  abandoned,  a  meaning 
toward  which  the  world  has  been  slowly 
moving  for  centuries  and  is  at  length  approach- 
ing. I  call  money  then  "a  trustworthy  promise 
to  give  certain  specified  goods  or  services  at 
some  sufficiently  definite  time."  This  invisible 
promise,  rendered  reliable  by  the  condition, 
as  respects  integrity  and  intelligence,  of  the 
mind  in  which  it  exists,  by  the  resources,  cor- 
poreal or  material,  of  the  mind  that  makes  it— 
this  invisible  promise,  I  say,  is  that  by  which 
the  greater  part  of  exchanges  are  effected. 

"Well,  this  is  a  great  discovery,"  laughs 
some  one,  "what  we  have  always  called  credit, 
you  propose  to  call  money!"  Perhaps  I  am  in 
the  wrong,  but  watch  me  and  see.  In  the 
unreal  community  I  was  describing,  every 
person  that  received  goods  or  services,  either 
gave  goods  and  services  immediately  in  return 
or  gave  his  promise  to  be  ready  with  goods 
and  services  at  some  future  time.  The  only 
way  in  which  he  could  get  anything,  was  by 
giving  something  in  exchange  there  and  then, 


174          SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

or  promising  to  give  something  in  exchange 
at  some  other  moment.  Now  I  say  he  bought 
either  with  goods  or  with  money,  and  that 
there  is  no  other  conceivable  way  of  getting 
anything  (excepting  of  course  gift  and  theft). 
What  you  object  to  is  the  use  of  the  word 
money  in  this  sense.  It  seems  strange,  forced, 
unnecessary.  So  do  some  ot  the  uses  of  the 
word  tangent  I  instanced  seem  to  a  country 
surveyor;  those  who  have  done  all  his  thinking 
for  him  in  advance  and  supplied  him  with  the 
ideas  of  which  he  makes  practical  application, 
have  not  been  of  that  opinion.  The  higher 
the  intelligence,  the  virtue  and  the  ability,  the 
better  does  the  mere  mutually  understood 
promise  suffice  to  effect  all  the  exchanges  of 
goods  and  services  that  the  community  wants 
to  make.  In  default  of  intelligence  or  virtue 
or  ability,  more  precautions  have  to  be  taken, 
securities  given  for  the  return  of  the  goods 
and  services  or  their  equivalent,  there  must 
be  witnesses,  hostages,  ceremonies,  documents, 
oaths — yes,  you  may  add  all  the  machinery  of 
courts  of  justice,  police  forces,  armies  and 
governments.  At  the  one  extreme  is  the 
actual  delivery  of  the  very  thing  required  in 
return  for  the  article  given  or  the  service  per- 
formed; at  the  other  extreme  is  the  mere 
promise  manifested  in  any  intelligible  way. 
At  the  one  extreme  the  invisible  money;  at 


MANY  MEANINGS  OF  MONEY         175 

the  other,  barter,  no  money,  because  the  con- 
dition for  the  intervention  of  money  does  not 
exist.  The  interval  between  these  is  filled  in 
two  ways:  by  visible  promises,  that  is,  by  some 
scrap  of  record;  and  by  guarantees  of  requital. 
Bills,  bank-notes,  checks,  book-accounts,  store- 
orders  are  such  scraps  of  record.  Precious 
stones,  gold,  silver  and  such  things  are 
guarantees  of  requital;  articles  left  in  pawn, 
as  it  were,  that  they  might  be  exchanged  for 
the  necessary  food  and  clothing  and  shelter 
when  these  were  not  forthcoming  or  likely  to 
be  forthcoming  on  demand.  We  know  how 
these  scraps  of  record,  these  promises,  often 
did  not  promise  the  very  article  or  articles 
that  would  be  wanted,  but  promised  some 
other  thing  as  gold  or  silver  instead;  we  know 
that  these  guarantees  of  requital  came  to  be 
regarded  as  the  requital  itself.  The  story  has 
been  told  a  thousand  times  how  their  desir- 
ability, their  divisibility,  their  durability  made 
them  media  of  exchange.  But  the  process  of 
their  introduction  was  not  so  simple  as  the 
imagination  of  our  hasty  reconstructors  of  the 
past  is  wont  to  depict  it. 

While  on  the  one  hand  the  pawns  or  pledges 
have  been  sliding  into  the  place  of  the  actual 
requital,  so  that  he  who  preferred  gold  in 
requital  could  not  be  compelled  to  furnish 
anything  else,  on  the  other  hand  the  promises 


1/  SWAIN     SCHOOL    LECTURES 

to  requite  had  a  growth  of  their  own.  That 
rude  voucher  of  a  promise  made,  the  tally,  has 
constituted  the  circulating  medium  of  many  a 
village  community,  nay,  even  of  great  states. 
The  king's  commission  that  gave  the  husband- 
man a  tally  for  the  appropriated  cattle  or 
grain,  knew  that  it  might  pass  through  many 
hands  before  it  should  be  presented  at  the 
exchequer  in  payment  of  taxes.  We  have 
then  at  an  early  time  these  two  so-called 
moneys:  on  the  one  hand  the  visualized, 
recognizable,  transferable  promise;  on  the 
other  hand  the  appropriated  or  confiscated 
pledge  or  pawn. 

We  have  now  four  aspects  of  money  and 
money's  worth  and  money's  sign,  which  may 
be  exhibited  in  a  diagram;  though  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  all  minds  are  assisted  by  diagrams, 
the  mere  schemes  and  outlines  of  the  realities 
of  the  world. 

Promise,  on 

gold  or  silver. 

Pawn  or  pledge 
as 'security. 

Things  desired. 

A.    Things  desired.  Promise  of  I"  *' 

things  desired. 
Promise  of  gold 
or  silver. 
Promise,  on 
leather,  wood,  paper. 


MANY   MEANINGS    OF    MONEY  1 77 

There  are  then  other  stages  still,  other 
aspects  of  this  process  of  effecting  the  inter- 
change of  commodities  and  services  when  time 
must  intervene  between  receiving  and 
requiting. 

When  the  pawn  or  pledge  had  become 
established  as  the  final  requital  itself;  the 
promise,  on  the  one  hand,  came  to  specify,  not 
the  things  ultimately  desired,  but  the  pawned 
gold  or  silver  or  precious  stones  or  whatever 
else  it  might  be  that  would  bring  their  posses- 
sors the  things  they  wanted;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  gold  and  the  silver  came  to  be  used 
as  the  material  on  which  the  promise  was 
written. 

When  a  thing  has  as  many  attributes  as  a 
piece  of  silver,  attributes  too  that  can  be  dis- 
cerned, not  by  merely  gazing  on  the  silver- 
piece,  but  by  the  intellect  alone;  why  should 
we  wonder  at  the  variety  of  views  and 
expressions,  the  misapprehensions  and  half- 
apprehensions  of  those  who  cannot  be 
expected  to  have  any  more  distinct  compre- 
hension of  sociological  processes  than  they 
have  of  the  processes  going  on  in  their  own 
minds  and  bodies.  This  piece  of  silver  is  a 
commodity,  can  supply,  that  is,  some  ultimate 
want;  it  is  a  security  for  future  requital;  it  is 
a  written  promise  of  future  payment;  it  is  a 
promissory  note  written  on  material  that  costs 


SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

half  the  face  of  the  note;  it  has  sometimes 
been  forced  by  a  sovereign  on  his  subjects  who 
are  bidden  to  accept  it  at  his  own  valuation. 
A  curious  state  of  affairs  enough.  But  do  you 
not  see  that  in  the  minds  of  the  disputants  in 
private  and  in  public  the  old  and  the  new  are 
contending  for  the  mastery?  the  usages  and 
the  habits  of  centuries  and  the  requirements 
of  utterly  changed  conditions?  We  are  com- 
ing to  see  that  the  essential  thing,  when 
exchanges  are  not  effected  by  barter,  is 
the  reliable  promise.  Trustworthy  promises, 
continually  made  and  fulfilled,  are  the  real 
money  of  the  community;  and  in  the  corpora- 
tions, in  the  boards  of  trade,  in  places  where 
commerce  flourishes,  there  are  even  in  our 
reviled  and  execrated  days  more  trustworthy 
promises  than  were  to  be  found  in  the  councils 
of  the  great  ecclesiastical  organizations  of  the 
past,  if  history  describes  their  transactions 
with  any  accuracy.  The  satisfactory  evidence 
of  a  reliable  promise  will  exchange  for 
merchandise  as  readily  as  merchandise  will 
exchange  for  merchandise;  and  millions  of 
exchanges  are  effected  in  civilized  countries 
by  means  of  acknowledgments  of  indebtedness, 
Their  use  is  extending  as  rapidly  as  the 
nature  of  men's  minds  will  permit.  If  the 
reliable  promise  is  the  essential  thing,  surely 
no  very  bulky  or  expensive  article  is  needed 


MANY  MEANINGS  OF  MONEY         179 

as  the  sign,  the  token,  the  expression  of  the 
promise.  A  promise  written  on  leather,  if  the 
promise  is  reliable,  is  as  good  as  one  written 
on  gold  or  silver;  but  if  I  have  any  misgiving 
about  your  willingness  or  your  ability  to 
deliver  what  you  promise,  I  think  I  should 
like  to  have  you  write  it  on  something 
which  would  exchange  elsewhere  if  you 
should  not  fulfill  your  promise,  for  as  much  as 
you  promise  to  give  me.  I  have  ventured  to 
apply  the  term  money  to  the  reliable  promise 
itself.  If  the  burden  of  its  meaning  could  be 
shifted  there,  if  it  could  be  made  plain  that 
this  is  what  is  essential,  then  all  the  propo- 
sitions into  which  the  word  money  enters 
would  be  habitually  contemplated  in  a  different 
light,  and  the  relations  of  banks  and  govern- 
ments to  money  would  not  be  understood  as 
implying  that  men  whom  you  would  not  trust 
to  manage  a  bank  are  competent  to  create 
money.  But  to-day  the  word  money  is  not 
limited  to  the  promise  itself;  it  is  applied  to 
certain  evidences  of  such  a  promise;  it  is 
applied  to  the  material  thing  which  guarantees 
the  performance  of  the  promise;  it  is  applied 
to  a  material  thing  that  is  consumed,  a 
commodity. 

An  oversight  has  been  made  in  depicting 
the  early  interchange  and  distribution  of  com- 
modities. Economists  have  represented  barter 


ISO  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

as  the  primitive  fact,  the  original  form  of 
transfer;  but  they  knew  that  earlier  than  that 
was  force  that  not  only  compelled  men  to 
surrender  the  products  of  their  industry,  but 
obliged  them  to  accept  in  return  whatever 
the  stronger  party  was  pleased  to  give.  This 
survives  to-day  in  civilized  communities  and 
in  great  states.  There  was  another  form  of 
transfer — fraud.  This  is  still  practiced.  There 
was  another  form;  namely,  the  bestowal  of 
presents,  in  the  hope  that  some  return  for 
them  would  be  made  in  time  of  need.  This 
also  remains.  Barter  too  continues  among  us, 
and  every  day  great  exchanges  of  property  for 
property  are  being  made  without  the  inter- 
vention of  any  so-called  money. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  stood  the  sovereign 
once,  the  actual,  living,  breathing,  frowning, 
smiling,  fighting,  fondling  sovereign;  and 
interfered  right  and  left,  for  good  and  bad; 
arrogated  to  himself  the  right  to  make  or 
annul  promises,  to  prescribe  exchange-ratios, 
to  decree  what  should  be  adequate  pawns  or 
securities  for  promises.  The  sovereign  may 
have  gone,  but  sovereignty  remains,  at  least 
in  the  minds  of  those  who  see  things  through 
the  medium  of  abstractions;  and  learned 
judges  deduce  thence  a  justification  for  sub- 
stituting scraps  of  record  for  material  guaran- 
tees of  payment,  justification  for  confounding 


MANY  MEANINGS  OF  MONEY         l8l 

under  the  same  denomination  things  that 
should  be  kept  distinct  in  thought  and  practice. 
But  we  are  in  the  boyhood,  if  not  in  the 
infancy  of  civilization;  and  we  call  ourselves 
civilized  merely  because  our  barbarisms  are 
enacted  on  a  larger  scale  and  by  indirect 
methods. 

But  manhood  is  upon  us  and  we  are  strug- 
gling toward  the  conviction  that  commodities 
are  not  needed  to  effect  the  exchange  of  com- 
modities; that  no  one  substance  like  silver 
and  gold  need  be  diverted  from  the  thousands 
of  uses  for  which  it  might  be  employed  to 
serve  merely  as  a  medium  for  exchange.  Let 
silver  and  gold  vanish  from  the  earth  and  the 
producers  of  goods  would  continue  to 
exchange  what  they  make  for  what  they 
want;  certificates  of  indebtedness,  tokens  of 
ownership  in  houses,  lands,  mills,  chattels  of 
all  kinds,  would  then  as  now  pass  from  hand 
to  hand  in  liquidation  of  claims.  Or  let  silver 
and  gold  become  so  abundant  that  stones  in 
New  England  are  not  more  so,  still  the 
business  of  the  world  would  go  on,  subject  to 
great  inconveniences,  indeed,  so  long  as  men 
should  lack  intelligence  and  integrity,  but 
when  men  should  have  acquired  those  two 
qualities,  go  on  as  well  as  if  silver  and  gold 
still  existed  or  had  never  become  worthless. 
In  fact  by  the  progress  of  virtue  and  intelli- 


1 82  SWAIN    SCHOOL   LECTURES 

gence,  the  precious  metals  are  destined  to  be 
eliminated  from  the  monetary  systems  of  the 
world.  He  who  sees  that  all  the  business  and 
trade  and  industry  and  commerce  of  the  world, 
call  it  what  you  will,  all  the  great  and  small 
exchanges  and  distributions,  are  effected  by 
barter  and  by  honest  promises — by  goods, 
that  is,  and  by  money — will  see  in  silver  now 
as  he  may  expect  to  see  in  gold  hereafter,  a 
material  too  valuable  to  write  notes  on  and 
not  valuable  enough  to  serve  as  a  guarantee 
for  their  payment. 


Some  Origins  of  the  Number  Two 


'  SOME  ORIGINS  OF  THE   NUMBER  TWO 

When  was  Two  discovered  or  invented,  or 
won  by  some  process  which  was  neither,  or  a 
blending  of  both?  Surely  before  a  dozen,  a 
score  or  a  hundred  were  known.  Its  emer- 
gence in  the  mind  of  the  beast-man  antedated 
written  and  even  spoken  language.  Are  there 
to-day  animals  other  than  man  that  see  a  Two 
as  Two?  There  are  men,  civilized  men,  who 
have  never  conceived  Two  in  all  its  abstract- 
ness,  in  all  its  generality,  in  all  its  independ- 
ence. For  beasts  and  savages  and  most  of 
their  descendants  the  Like  and  the  Unlike  are 
touches,  tastes,  smells,  odors,  colors  and 
temperatures;  and  only  a  few  have  forced  on 
them  the  consideration  of  shapes,  sizes,  dis- 
tances, of  the  more  or  less  of  this  and  that. 
One  heap  or  series  or  pile  or  mass  was  larger 
than  another,  they  might  be  aware;  but  exact 
comparison  would  hardly  be  made  till  men  had 
to  make  it.  Before  Two  could  appear,  some 
such  notions  were  present  as  are  all  too 
definitely  expressed  by  our  many,  few,  more, 
less,  some. 

Our  school-bred  generation  thinks  of  the 
symbols,  two,  deux,  d^to,  zwei,  or  more  often, 

185 


1 86         SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

of  2,  rather  than  of  the  idea  or  conception  or 
phenomenon  or  reality,  or  whatever  it  may  be 
that  we  are  now  seeking  the  origin  of. 

The  likeness  one  man  is  conscious  of, 
another  cannot  discern,  though  the  things  are 
before  his  eyes,  and  the  likeness,  says  the 
former,  "plain  as  day."  There  are  tribes  that 
have  names  for  a  couple,  a  brace,  a  pair,"  a 
yoke,  a  span,  a  deuce;  but  no  name,  like  two 
for  what  is  common  to  all  these,  no  conscious- 
ness of  that  kind  of  resemblance  in  them. 

Salutary  inability  to  generalize,  to  burst  the 
bonds  that  time  and  place  and  circumstance 
have  imposed  on  us!  Note  in  what  precisely 
this  inability  consists.  We  who  have  seen  the 
likeness  over  and  over  again,  who  have  named 
it,  and  named  things  as  having  this  likeness, 
forget  that  there  must  have  been  for  a  long 
time  an  utter  lack  of  interest  in  these  aspects 
of  things;  how  does  Two  concern  even  you 
independently  of  other  considerations?  We 
are  hardly  aware  how  feeble  the  beginnings 
of  memory  must  be;  how  frequently  an 
experience  must  be  repeated  before  it  can  be 
recalled.  Weakness  of  imagination,  the 
inability  to  present  to  one's  self  what  is  distant 
or  different,  is  one  feature  of  the  slow  growth 
of  perceptions.  One  consciousness  excludes 
another,  and  a  wide  survey  of  particulars  is 
impossible.  Fanciful  and  irrelevant  general- 


SOME    ORIGINS    OF    THE    NUMBER    TWO  l8/ 

izations  are  easy  and  common  enough  in  the 
first  stages  of  existence;  but  they  exclude 
relevant  and  exemplifiable  generalizations 
from  the  minds  of  philosophers  of  to-day; 
witness  the  many  attempts  to  find  analogies 
between  conceptions  of  metaphysicians  and 
misapprehended  mathematics.  It  is  hard  for 
man  to  generalize;  it  is  harder  for  him  to 
abstract.  Even  when  he  is  beginning  to  dis- 
cern what  there  is  common  to  his  eyes,  his 
cheeks,  his  hands,  his  lips,  his  feet,  his  ears; 
even  when  the  glimmer  of  a  sense  is  slowly 
emerging  that  all  these  things,  amid  all  their 
unlikenesses,  have  something  in  which  they 
are  alike;  even  then  he  can  only  think  of  this 
something  in  terms  of  his  own  experience. 
To  call  up  Two  to  the  minds  of  his  fellows, 
as  to  his  own,  he  points  to  the  lips,  the  eyes, 
to  a  cleft  stick.  He  learns  very  gradually  to 
drop  off  the  non-essentials,  and  to  find  out 
what  the  non-essentials  are.  He  cannot  as 
yet  see  that  all  the  really  important  and  useful 
elements  of  the  idea,  are  present  in  these  dots 
or  specks  (  .  .  ),  even  here  mixed  with  much 
that  is  extraneous.  No;  when  he  thinks  Two, 
long  after  he  has  attained  the  general  con- 
ception, he  can  include  under  it,  assimilate  to 
it,  only  the  most  concrete  phenomena.  All 
his  Twos  are  blue  or  yellow,  sweet  or  sour, 
alive  or  dead;  they  are  even  virtuous  or 


1 88  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

vicious,  perishable  or  eternal.  He  has  not 
extricated  his  conception  from  the  bewildering 
eddyings  of  the  matter  in  which  it  is  immersed. 
Even  we  who  try  to  think  Two  with  a  minimum 
of  representation,  cannot  think  it  without  some 
representation,  though  it  be  but  two  points 
flung  at  random  in  space;  that  is,  if  we  think 
it,  or  attempt  to  think  it.  We  use  it  a  great 
deal  without  thinking  it  at  all. 

Here  then  is  a  fact  altogether  noteworthy. 
After  men  had  struggled  for  ages  to  gain  this 
very  useful  conception,  for  useful  in  the  course 
of  time  it  had  become, — after  they  had  given 
it  a  name  and  a  symbol;  after  they  had  dis- 
cerned many  of  its  properties  and  relations  to 
other  numbers — there  were  trained  a  class  of 
men  whose  thoughts  had  to  be  concentrated 
on  the  symbol,  never  diverted  to  the  thing  it 
stood  for.  Rather  let  me  say  (for  the  symbol 
is  itself  a  thing):  When  it  had  been  found  out 
that  one  thing  always  went  with  another  thing 
(as  2  with  .  . ),  they  turned  their  attention  to 
one  of  these  things  and  withdrew  it  from  the 
other.  There  are  thousands  of  accountants 
and  calculators  who  have  no  occasion  from  one 
year's  end  to  another  to  pay  any  heed  to  what 
their  numerals  stand  for.  They  manipulate 
numerals  and  figures,  and  not  only  manipulate 
them  with  fingers  and  pen,  but  turn  them  over 
in  their  minds,  thinking  no  more  of  the 


SOME    ORIGINS    OF    THE    NUMBER    TWO  189 

numbers  than  a  calculating-machine  in  which 
metal  numerals  are  sliding  and  rolling  to  and 
fro.  Why,  children  might  be  taught,  children 
have  been  taught,  to  perform  numeral  addition, 
numeral  subtraction,  and  many  other  pro- 
cesses of  pure  calculation  with  symbols  in 
mind  or  on  paper,  without  as  much  as  being 
made  to  suspect  that  they  implied  numbers  at 
all  or  the  relations  of  numbers. 

Such  substitutive  signs,  as  they  have  been 
called,  are  of  very  great  utility.  Skill  in  their 
employment  can  be  acquired  only  by  attend- 
ing in  early  life  to  their  relations  to  one 
another,  apart  from  their  relation  to  the 
things  for  which  they  are  substituted.  Such 
absorption  of  the  mind  in  one  of  two  related 
sets  of  things  has  sometimes  been  unduly 
reprobated.  We  need  great  calculators,  expert 
accountants,  rapid  cipherers.  For  the  services 
that  these  render  a  large  contingent  must  be 
trained  till  the  practice  of  their  art  becomes 
their  chief  pleasure;  and  yet  it  is  not  the 
training  for  those  who  are  to  do  other  things. 

But  let  us  return  to  our  number.  While 
this  Two  was  getting  himself  established  amid 
curious  concretions  and  limitations,  with  looks 
very  different  from  those  of  his  purified  and 
refined  successor  of  to-day,  Three  and  Four 
were  also  growing  into  view  and  not  Three 
and  Four  alone.  For  these  things  re-act  on 


190         SWAIN  SCHOOL  LECTURES 

one  another.  When  a  few  have  gained  a  solid 
footing,  others  are  soon  assembled  around 
them.  Some  comparisons  must  have  been 
made,  some  relations  discerned  among  them, 
even  while  they  were  in  process  of  develop- 
ment. There  was  thus  a  network,  an  interac- 
tion of  Twos  and  Fours  and  Fives;  a  body  of 
truths  which  must  have  seemed  something 
wonderful  to  savage  minds,  if  savage  minds 
ever  wonder.  When  was  the  great  truth 
beheld  for  the  first  time,  I  do  not  say  estab- 
lished, that  two  stones  and  two  stones  are 
four  stones?  You  fancy  that  four  could  not 
have  been  named  without  thinking  of  Twos. 
You  can  tell  at  a  glance  the  number  of  stones 
in  a  small  heap,  yet  you  cannot  tell  without 
careful  examination,  how  many  a  heap  has  in 
it  that  is  only  a  little  larger.  You  see  the 
number  of  the  small  heap  apparently  as 
readily  as  you  see  any  aspect  of  it.  It  would 
perhaps  be  hard  to  persuade  you  that  anyone 
ever  experimented  to  find  whether  the  result 
would  be  changed  by  taking  another  set  of 
stones  or  changing  the  arrangement  of  them, 
whether  indeed  two  and  two  sticks  would 
behave  in  this  respect  like  two  and  two 
stones.  "Experiment"  and  "sticks"  and 
"stones"  and  "two"  itself  are  all  too  definite 
terms  with  which  to  describe  the  movements 
of  nascent  intelligence.  These  words  did  not 


SOME    ORIGINS    OF   THE     NUMBER    TWO  IQI 

then  exist  nor  the  classifications  they  denote 
with  all  their  manifold  implications.  Multi- 
tudes of  sensations  (though  "sensation"  is  itself 
too  definite  a  word)  must  have  occurred  in 
ever  varied  combinations  before  even  a  stick 
or  a  stone,  to  say  nothing  of  a  Two,  was  dis- 
tinguishable. 

The  processes  of  addition,  subtraction,  and 
so  forth,  mean  to  most  of  us  "figuring"  either 
in  our  head,  as  we  say,  or  on  paper;  but  these 
processes  were  once,  were  for  a  long  time,  are 
even  now  over  most  of  the  earth,  processes 
that  involve  muscular  exertion  and  the  moving 
and  grouping  of  external  objects.  There  was 
the  process  of  aggregation,  the  process  of 
bringing  a  flock  together  to  be  counted.  It 
must  have  been  a  long  step  in  advance  when 
it  was  perceived  that  a  man  might  go  from 
field  to  field,  dropping  a  pebble  into  a  pouch 
for  every  sheep,  and  get  the  correct  result  by 
counting  the  pebbles.  But  this  talk  of  flocks, 
fields  and  pebbles  is  a  mere  travesty  of  the 
actual  process,  which  does  not  admit  of  any 
brief  description. 

Two  ones,  two  twos,  two  threes,  and  so  on, 
one  two,  two  twos,  three  twos  and  the  like 
must  have  been  often  thought  of  and  talked 
of  before  this  way  of  thinking  and  speaking 
found  philosophers  to  puzzle.  How  could  the 
same  thing  be  at  one  and  the  same  time  both 


I Q2  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

one  and  not  one,  or  both  two  and  not  two;  or 
how  could  it  be  called  at  once  one  and  two? 
But  the  one  and  the  two  of  the  workers  and 
investigators  and  scientists  were  not  the  one 
and  the  two  of  the  philosophers.  The  worlds 
accordingly  went  on  their  way  undisturbed  by 
the  difficulties  that  the  philosopher  tried  to 
open  their  eyes  to.  Those  engaged  in  buying 
and  selling,  in  measuring  and  counting,  in  the 
use  of  numbers,  were  not  troubling  themselves 
with  the  search  after  the  Real  Two,  the 
Essentially  Existent  Two,  the  Beingly  Being 
Two,  and  the  Real  One,  the  Essentially  Exist- 
ent One,  the  Beingly  Being  One;  but  such 
things  the  philosopher  cared  for. 

Twos  then  had  become  known  and  used. 
Stones  and  sticks,  things  animate  as  well  as 
things  inanimate,  things  of  all  kinds,  had 
slowly  revealed  an  aspect  common  to  them  all, 
that  everywhere  among  them  were  Twos.  A 
symbol  was  found  for  a  Two;  the  same  symbol 
was  used  for  each  and  every  Two.  This 
symbol  all  but  dislodged,  from  some  minds  at 
least,  the  thing  it  stood  for,  till  it  seemed  to 
these  minds  that  the  two  itself  did  not  exist 
or  was  not  necessary;  somewhat  as  bills  and 
cheques  have  replaced  gold  and  silver.  But 
the  philosopher  was  not  to  be  cheated  in  that 
way,  he  was  not  to  be  paid  with  words  and 
signs.  He  started  out  in  search  of  the  Real 


SOME    ORIGINS    OF   THE    NUMBER    TWO  1 93 

One  and  the  Real  Two.  He  could  not  help 
doing  this.  His  thought  was  not  so  much 
more  developed  than  that  of  his  fellows  as 
they  both  perhaps  supposed.  He  simply 
asked  himself  questions  which  others  were  too 
busy  to  ask,  for  one  reason;  and  he  often  went 
round  and  round  in  one  spot,  asking  his  ques- 
tion over  and  over  again  from  mere  force  of 
habit.  It  is  often  so  when  new  generalizations 
come  into  view.  I  do  not  mean  those  pulpit 
and  platform  generalizations  which  re-state 
resemblances  which  have  been  known  and 
named  for  ages;  but  those  generalizations 
which  involve  hidden  and  hitherto  unperceived 
resemblances.  What  was  the  philosopher's 
question? 

These  apples  are  Two;  there  are  Two  trees; 
here  are  Two  stones;  these  pencils  are  Two. 
Now  the  Two  that  is  in  the  apples  is  not  their 
color  or  scent  or  shape  or  size  or  taste;  and 
yet  it  must  be  something — else  why  call  the 
apples  Two?  It  must  be  a  reality;  for  the 
apples  may  change  and  decay  and  wither,  but 
Two  abides.  Even  if  the  apples  perish 
utterly,  are  we  to  suppose  that  Two  perishes 
with  them?  Might  we  but  find  out  what  this 
Two  really  is!  Surely  it  is  not  to  be  discerned 
with  bodily  eyes.  Is  the  Two  in  the  stones, 
the  same  as  the  Two  in  the  apples,  or  is  it  a 
distinct  Two?  Can  there  be  as  many  really 


194  SWAIN   SCHOOL    LECTURES 

existent  Twos  as  there  are  transitory,  perish- 
able and  material  Twos?  And  what  can  be 
their  relation  to  one  another  and  to  the  Twos 
of  the  sensible  world?  Or  is  there  only  one 
Really  Existent  Two  that  pervades  and  per- 
meates all  the  perceivable  Twos?  How  are 
these  questions  to  be  answered?  But  a  worse 
entanglement  remains.  May  not  the  mind 
be  deceived  and  merely  fancy  that  it  beholds 
the  Real  Two  amid  the  Twos  of  sense,  or  apart 
from  them,  mistaking  for  the  reality  some 
adumbration  and  reflection  thereof?  some 
dream  or  vision  or  memory?  Through  sense, 
through  imagination,  through  intellect,  we 
may  rise  higher  and  higher  to  a  purer,  a  more 
real  and  permanent  Two;  but  are  we  sure 
that  we  have  reached  the  Two  in  itself,  by 
itself?  the  Two  from  which  all  other  Twos  (so- 
called)  derive  the  property  of  being  Two  by 
being  participants  in  the  nature  of  the  Ideal- 
Real?  With  his  mind  fixed  on  Two's  unchang- 
ing clime,  how  he  despised  those  Twos  of  the 
ordinary  man's  experience.  It  was  The  Two 
that  he  worshipped,  not  this  Two  and  that 
Two.  Was  not  this  most  excellent  fooling?  or 
was  it  unfathomable  wisdom?  Both  views  are 
still  entertained.  I  have  used  the  word 
"number"  as  if  Two  had  always  been  a  num- 
ber, as  if  it  had  always  been  recognized  as 
such.  To  many  of  the  ancients  one  was  not 


SOME    ORIGINS    OF    THE    NUMBER    TWO  1 95 

a  number,  nor  were  there  such  things  as 
fractional  numbers,  as  our  school-books  define 
them,  nor  any  incommensurable  numbers 
(incommensurable  quantities  indeed)  still  less 
negative  and  imaginary  and  complex  num- 
bers— nothing  but  positive  integers  greater 
than  one.  It  seems  that  it  took  centuries  for 
Two  to  get  recognized  as  belonging  even  to 
this  grade  of  numbers,  or  rather  for  the 
resemblances  between  Two  and  Three  and 
Four  and  Five  and  the  rest  to  be  discerned. 

It  was  long  debated  for  what  reason,  on 
what  ground,  Two  was  called  a  number,  what 
property  or  properties  it  had  to  entitle  it  to 
rank  as  such.  Resemblances  had  been  felt, 
convenience  had  been  consulted,  names  had 
been  given,  inconsistencies  had  been  intro- 
duced, difficulties  had  been  encountered — that 
Two  appeared  when  a  stick  was  laid  by 
another;  and  when  a  stick  was  severed,  Two 
likewise  appeared.  This  something  or  other, 
no  one  could  tell  what,  that  was  meant  when 
Two  was  called  a  number,  what  else  should  it 
be,  the  philosopher  opined,  but  the  Really 
Existent  Number,  of  whose  nature  the  Really 
Existent  Two  partook  in  some  mysterious 
way,  not  unlike  that  perhaps  in  which  the 
Twos  of  sense  had  the  Really  Existent  Two 
totally  and  simultaneously  present  in  each 
and  all  of  them,  being,  for  instance,  wholly 


196  SWAIN    SCHOOL    LECTURES 

present  in  each  of  the  six  Twos  that  are  found 
in  four. 

This  explanation  of  the  considerations  that 
justified  the  placing  of  Two  among  the 
numbers,  was  unintelligible  to  some;  but 
those  who  understand  it  or  revere  it,  find  that 
it  renders  impossible  any  other  solution- 
undesirable  at  any  rate,  if  not  impossible. 

The  word  "Two"  comes  of  an  ancient  race 
with  many  kindred  dispersed  through  many 
lands;  but  where  the  family  originated  or  with 
what  humbler  meanings  they  consorted  in 
their  beginnings  it  is  difficult  to  ascertain. 
With  regard  to  the  descent  of  its  fellow,  the 
character  "2,"  many  plausible  conjectures 
have  been  made.  But  the  histories  of  "Two" 
and  "2"  might  never  have  been,  or  been  very 
different,  without  affecting  the  number  Two. 
This  is  any  one  of  the  pairs  of  which  we  are 
in  any  way  conscious;  this  is  all  of  them;  this 
is  what  is  common  to  them  all;  this  is  some- 
thing abstracted  from  them  all,  existing 
either  alone  by  itself,  or  in  some  mind,  or  not 
existing  at  all  but  in  its  symbol,  or  existing  in 
some  utterly  inconceivable  way;  this  has  been 
forgotten,  and  "2"  alone  thought  of.  But  the 
number  Two,  the  numeral  adjective  or  sub- 
stantive or  pronoun  Two,  the  numeric  symbol 
2,  are  already  discerned  by  some  to  be  on  the 
way  to  yet  further  changes,  and  likely  to 


SOME    ORIGINS    OF    THE.    NUMBER    TWO  1 97 

become  associated  with  something  as  different 
from  each  as  each  is  from  the  other.  We  who 
are  not  mathematicians  can  only  behold  these 
transformations  from  afar. 

Tantae  uiolis  erat  Binorum  condere  gentem. 


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THE  RELIGION  OF  SCIENCE. 

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PRIMER  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

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THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  DARWIN.  • 

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MARTIN  LUTHER. 

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DISCOURSE  ON  THE  AWAKENING  OF  FAITH  in  the  Mahayana. 
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No.  i.   The  Religion  of  Science.     By  PAUL  CARUS.    250  (is.  6d.). 

2.  Three  Introductory  Lectures  on   the   Science  of  Thought.     By  F.  MAX 

MULLER.    250  (is.  6d.). 

3.  Three  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Language.  F.  MAX  MOLLER.  25C(is.6d.) 

4.  The  Diseases  of  Personality.     By  TH.  RIBOT.    250  (is.  6d.). 

5.  The  Psychology  of  Attention.     By  TH.  RIBOT.     250  (is.  6d.). 

6.  The  Psychic  Life  of  Micro-Organisms.     By  ALFRED  BINET.    250  (is.  6d.) 

7.  The  Nature  of  the  State.     By  PAUL  CARUS.     150  (gd.). 

8.  On  Double  Consciousness.     By  ALFRED  BINET.     150  (gd.j. 
g.  Fundamental  Problems.     By  PAUL  CARUS.     500  (25.  6d.). 

10.  The  Diseases  of  the  Will.     By  TH.  RIBOT.     250  (is.  6d.). 

11.  The  Origin  of  Language.    By  LUDWIG  NOIRE.     150  (gd.). 

12.  The  Free  Trade  Struggle  in  England.     M.  M.  TRUMBULL.    250  (is.  6d.j 

13.  Wheelbarrow  on  the  Labor  Question.     By  M.  M.  TRUMBULL.   350(25.). 

14.  The  Gospel  of  Buddha.     By  PAUL  CARUS.    350  (as.). 

15.  The  Primer  of  Philosophy.     By  PAUL  CARUS.    250  (is.  6d.). 

16.  On  Memory,  and  The  Specific  Energies  of  the  Nervous  System.     By  PROF. 

EWALD  HERING.     150  (gd.). 

17.  The  Redemption  of  the  Brahman.      Tale  of  Hindu  Life.      By  RICHARD 

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23.  The  Prophets  of  Israel.     By  PROF.  C.  H.  CORNILL.    250  (l.  6d.). 

24.  Homilies  of  Science.     By  PAUL  CARUS.     350(28.). 

25.  Thoughts  on  Religion.     By  G.  J.  ROMANES.     500  (2s.  6d.). 

26.  The  Philosophy  of  Ancient  India.  By  PROF.  RICHARD  GARBE.  25c(is.6d.) 

27.  Martin  Luther.     By  GUSTAV  FREYTAG.    250  (is.  6d.). 

28.  English  Secularism.     By  GEORGE  JACOB  HOLYOAKE.     250  (is.  6d.). 
2g.  On  Orthogenesis.     By  TH.  EIMER.     250  (is.  6d.). 

30.  Chinese  Philosophy.     By  PAUL  CARUS.     250  (is.  6d.). 

31.  The  Lost  Manuscript.     By  GUSTAV  FREYTAG.    6oc  (35.). 

32.  A  Mechanico-Physiological  Theory  of  Organic  Evolution.     By  CARL  VON 

NAEGELI.    150  (gd.). 

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34.  Mathematical  Essays  and  Recreations.     By  H.  SCHUBERT.     25C  (is.  6d.) 

35.  The  Ethical  Problem.     By  PAUL  CARUS.     Joe  (2S.  6d.). 

36.  Buddhism  and  Its  Christian  Critics.     By  PAUL  CARUS.     see  (as.  6d.). 

37.  Psychology  for  Beginners.     By  HIRAM  M.  STANLEY.     2oc  (is.). 

38.  Discourse  on  Method.     By  DESCARTES.    250  (is.  6d.). 
3g.   The  Da-tun  of  a  Neiu  Era.    By  PAUL  CARUS.     150  (gd.). 

40.  Kant  and  Spencer.     By  PAUL  CARUS.    2oc  (is.). 

41.  The  Soul  of  Man.    By  PAUL  CARUS.    750  (35.  6d.). 

42.  World's  Congress  Addresses.     By  C.  C.  BONNEY.     150  (gd.). 

43.  The  Gospel  According  to  Darwin.   By  WOODS  HUTCHINSON.   500  (23.  6d.) 

44.  Whence  and  Whither.     By  PAUL  CARUS.     250(15.  6d.). 

45.  Enquiry   Concerning  Human   Understanding.     By  DAVID  HUME.     250 

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